Paintsville officials announce replacement event for Apple Festival
By TONY FYFFE
BSN Editor
PAINTSVILLE — Just days after the Kentucky Apple Festival of Johnson County was cancelled for the second consecutive year, the city of Paintsville announced plans for a replacement event to help non-profit organizations.
The Paintsville Autumn Fest will be held Sept. 30 through Oct. 2 in conjunction with a previously announced event at Alley on Main, a local entertainment venue, according to Paintsville Mayor Bill Mike Runyon.
“We understand our non-profits always used this weekend as their yearly fundraiser,” Runyon said in a release issued Aug. 31. “With that said the city will open up it’s (sic) downtown streets for vendors to make as much money as they can.”
Officials with the Kentucky Apple Festival of Johnson County announced Aug. 27 that this year’s event, scheduled to begin Oct. 1, was cancelled.
“After consulting with local health officials and emergency management, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the Kentucky Apple Festival until 2022,” Apple Festival officials said on the event’s Facebook page. “There were a number of factors involved in this situation that left us with no other option.”
The rise in the number of new COVID-19 cases in Johnson and surrounding counties may have played a role in the decision to cancel the annual Paintsville event, which was also shuttered in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Apple Festival officials announced in April that this year’s event would be held Oct. 1-2, saying they were “already working hard to fulfill our promise to make this year's festival better than ever!”
Paintsville Autumn Fest will be held in conjunction with Alley Fest 2021 at Alley on Main in Paintsville, which bills itself as the “newest live music and event bar” in Eastern Kentucky.
The three-day “festival experience with world-class artists” will include Americana, country, bluegrass and folk acts.
Performers slated to perform include Tyler Booth, Nick Shoulders, 49’ Winchester, Kentucky Headhunters, Little Texas, Justin Wells, Logan Halstead, Rachel Baiman, The Dirty Grass Players, Alex Miller and Wayne Graham.
Also in the line-up are Cole Chaney, Clarke Sexton, Brit Taylor, River Tramps, Andrew Crawford, Jack Marion and the Pearl Snap Prophets and Luke Trimble along with special guest Cledus T. Judd.
Vendor fees of $25 for arts and crafts and $50 for food will be charged at Paintsville Autumn Fest “just to cover some expenses,” Runyon said in the release.
The fee for food vendors will be in addition to the city’s restaurant tax. The $25 fee for arts and crafts applies to artisans from Johnson, Magoffin, Lawrence, Martin, Morgan, Floyd and Pike counties. Artisans from other counties will be charged $50.
The city told vendors to be prepared to provide their own power source but added that “we will do everything we can in this short amount of time to provide it for you.”
“Note, we as a city government did reach out to the chairman of the Apple Board to borrow or rent their electrical boxes and we were told NO,” the city said. “Is it about community or control?”