For more than 30 years, the Master Musicians Festival has been bringing some of the most talented musicians in the world to Somerset.

And as the name implies, the festival highlights those who are masters at their musical genres.

The once small musical event continues to draw bigger crowds and bigger names each and every year, and the executive director of the festival shares it was a gamble on one music legend that put them on the map.

The festival was was formed to bring musical excellence to rural Kentucky, where it was otherwise not readily available.

And that is still our mission to today.

The last 32 years, I say we've kind of focused mostly on folk Americana lineup, but we always add just a little bit of extra flair to that, whether that's blues rock, we do reggae, Celtic, there.

This year we're doing Latin pop, so we always like to add a little bit of a different genre in there in some of the spots, but it it is mostly country, Americana and folk music.

This year we're excited to bring in Jamey Johnson, and he's kind of like that traditional at all country guy.

And so we have a lot of young folks that are really excited about him coming this year.

We always honor a master, and this year is the one and only Kentucky Headhunters.

And, we've you know, we've been thinking about them for a long time, and we just feel like it's finally time to give them the credit that is due.

Then we have the Buffalo jobs and the Price Hill hustle out of Ohio headlining Friday night.

We have a lot of Somerset artists on our lineup this year.

Hunter Flynn, Cody Lee Mays are two of our most, I guess we'll say famous, local musicians right now.

And, we're giving them very big spots on the main stage right before the two headliners.

So, that's going to be a really cool moment for our hometown.

This is my 15th year booking the festival, so I've pretty much gotten everybody that I've wanted one way or another.

Unless they're just way out of our league.

Go go go go go.

We decided to go after Willie Nelson in 2013.

Before that, our, headliner budget was about 25% of what Willie cost.

So we took a huge leap of faith to be able to get him and, you know, brought on new sponsors and was able to do it.

And, and that year ended up being amazing.

So looking back, like love that we've had Willie Nelson, many people still wear that kind of like a badge of honor.

And then another one would be John Prine.

We had him right before Covid and right before he passed and just I will never forget him dancing on the stage, moving to Paradise.

And it was just one of those things where you were like, I'm going to remember this forever.

It's nice to meet you.

I'm working on a.

For me personally, want to just being up there, just being a little girl, listening to the Judds with my mom and my grandma, driving out the country where we lived.

Singing those songs.

And then full circle, you know, being the director of this festival where I got to bring La Nina back, to this area.

And.

Yeah, that was really cool moment for me.

It's a big gamble to say, okay, well, I'm going to pick this artist.

I'm going to pay them six figures, and then you just count on your community and your fanbase to to make sure that we make that up and that they'll be excited about.

So you have to know your demographic pretty well to take that kind of leap.

We see about 7500 people throughout the two days.

And whether that's, you know, ticket holders, sponsors, we have a huge sponsorship, contingency, I would say, because that's how we afford to keep our prices lower than most festivals.

And that's kind of where non profit mission comes in, is we want to be able to make our festival, affordable for everyone.

And we're just so fortunate to have Cyrus at Community College come on.

As a partner, they have coined, right behind us, the land back behind the tennis course, festival field.

And it says it on all of their sign.

So that's really cool that we have a home there that the state tells us with their calculator that we make a $3 million economic impact on the day.

The two days of the festival.

So we're really proud of that.

We use that number a lot when we're marketing to, businesses to help sponsor.

And and it really has become part of our mission to like you know, it started off to bring arts and culture here, but we have added that in that it that it is a huge economic, driver.

Everybody is trying to recruit the chamber, trying to recruit businesses here.

This is something that they can say, like, hey, your employees will have a great quality of life because look at this awesome festival that they can attend and be part of.

The Master Musicians Festival is taking place this weekend in Somerset.