Free, downtown, and all bluegrass, old-time and roots — four outdoor stages plus square dancing on Martin Street.
Raleigh Wide Open takes over downtown Raleigh on October 1-3, 2026, and it is free. The festival is produced by PineCone, the Raleigh nonprofit that has spent decades keeping Piedmont traditional music funded and audible, and the booking reflects that: bluegrass, old-time, gospel quartet singing, son jarocho, son huasteco and Icelandic folk on the same weekend, with nobody asked for a ticket.
Thursday October 1 is a free kickoff at The Corner on N.C. State's Centennial Campus with three of the festival's bands. The real weight lands Friday October 2 and Saturday October 3, when four outdoor stages — City Plaza, Davie Street, PineCone and Martin Street — run in parallel through the afternoon and into the night.
Two things set it apart from a normal roots bill. Martin Street is given over to square dancing both nights, 7:30 to 10:30, with Earl White Stringband and the Five Points Rounders playing and Phil Jamison and Nancy Mamlin calling. And the City of Raleigh Museum hosts artist interviews on Friday and author talks on Saturday, so Jim Lauderdale, the Fairfield Four, Brek and Alice Gerrard can be heard talking as well as playing.
Expect bluegrass, old-time, string band and progressive bluegrass across 42 acts.
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Grammy-winning North Carolina native and Americana's most prolific lifer — a songwriter's songwriter with dozens of albums and a long bluegrass streak alongside Ralph Stanley.
From Nashville, TN · Sounds like Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, Ralph Stanley, Robert Earl Keen
Kevin Russell's post-Gourds nine-piece — Texas blues, New Orleans funk, Memphis horns and border music, delivered in a technicolor suit with a ukulele.
From Austin, TX · Sounds like The Gourds, Dr. John, Galactic, JD McPherson
A cappella gospel quartet organized in Nashville in the 1920s and still going — Grammy-winning, National Heritage Fellowship-honored, with a bottom end you feel in your chest.
From Nashville, TN · Sounds like The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Soul Stirrers, The Gospel Jubilators
Grammy-nominated East Tennessee band playing hard-charging traditional bluegrass with the road miles and the IBMA hardware to back up bandleader C.J. Lewandowski's claim that they live what they sing.
From Maryville, TN · Sounds like Del McCoury Band, The SteelDrivers, Flatt & Scruggs, Asheville Mountain Boys
North Carolina band running Irish and Appalachian tune traditions through a punk-tempo string band — fiddle, banjo, and a lot of shouting.
Sounds like The Pogues, Flogging Molly, Gaelic Storm, Dropkick Murphys
Bluegrass Hall of Fame singer, fiddler and guitarist whose 1960s and '70s duo records with Hazel Dickens opened the music to generations of women; she also founded the Old-Time Herald.
From Durham, NC · Sounds like Hazel Dickens, Ola Belle Reed, Rhiannon Giddens, Anna & Elizabeth
Banjo-and-fiddle duo who play tradition-deep old-time with an improviser's nerve — tight arrangements that periodically fly off into scratch, drone and noise.
Sounds like Anna & Elizabeth, Bruce Molsky, The Onlies, Rhiannon Giddens
All-women Colorado string quartet with conservatory chops and a bar-band mouth — ripping instrumentals, dark humor and songs that don't flinch.
From Denver, CO · Sounds like Della Mae, Molly Tuttle, Crooked Still, Nickel Creek
Icelandic group splicing their own folk tradition into wider currents, and winners of the folk and world category at the Icelandic Music Awards.
From Reykjavík, Iceland · Sounds like Väsen, Danish String Quartet, Frigg, Árstíðir
North Carolina songwriter with an unhurried, warm-grained Americana voice; he self-produced Heavy Thrill at the Cash Cabin and put it out on his own label.
From Winston-Salem, NC · Sounds like Jason Isbell, John Moreland, Erin Rae, Tyler Childers
North Carolina Piedmont outfit playing old-time-leaning bluegrass with a rough edge and no interest in polish — porch music that never got sanded down for the stage.
Sounds like Chatham County Line, The Po' Ramblin' Boys, Earl White Stringband
Founding Green Grass Clogger Earl White leads one of old-time's most in-demand dance bands — a Black fiddler carrying forward a tradition Black communities built.
From Floyd, VA · Sounds like Carolina Chocolate Drops, Joe Thompson, Rhiannon Giddens, Jake Blount
Grammy-winning roots duo Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer with hammered dulcimer player Chao Tian, braiding Chinese classical melody into Appalachian string-band music.
Sounds like Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Abigail Washburn, Wu Man
Banjoist Hank Smith and fiddler Pattie Hopkins Kinlaw front a bluegrass band that folds Motown, jazz and classical phrasing into the traditional frame.
From Raleigh, NC · Sounds like Nickel Creek, Béla Fleck, Mighty Poplar, Steep Canyon Rangers
Laura Wortman and Kagey Parrish, two voices and two instruments across two decades — clawhammer banjo, mandolin and electric guitar pushing quiet folk somewhere stranger.
From Baltimore, MD · Sounds like Gillian Welch, Anna & Elizabeth, Watchhouse, The Milk Carton Kids
Brooklyn-born multi-instrumentalist and Carolina Chocolate Drops alum who follows the African American thread running through America's traditional music forms — banjo, bones, and guitar in service of the story.
From Brooklyn, NY · Sounds like Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, Jerron Paxton, Carolina Chocolate Drops
Mipso's mandolinist and co-founder, raised in the North Carolina mountains and now out on his own; solo debut Middle Kid was built from the musical friendships he made in Brooklyn.
Sounds like Mipso, Watchhouse, Andrew Marlin, Nickel Creek
Che Apalache founder Joe Troop convenes old-time and bluegrass friends into an openly political string band — the self-described "artivist" with a full backing crew.
From Winston-Salem, NC · Sounds like Che Apalache, Steve Earle, Billy Bragg, Rhiannon Giddens
Mipso co-founder turned solo songwriter, raised Quaker in the North Carolina Piedmont and writing plainspoken topical songs in the Guthrie–Seeger line for a very online age.
Sounds like Mipso, Jeffrey Martin, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger
Venezuelan harpist Larry Bellorín and North Carolina banjoist Joe Troop trade llanera and Appalachian repertoire across harp, cuatro, banjo, fiddle and maracas.
Sounds like Che Apalache, Ry Cooder, Rhiannon Giddens, Los Cojolites
High-country North Carolina band led by multi-instrumentalist Liam Purcell, tagged by No Depression as "the future of bluegrass" — innovation without abandoning the form.
From Boone, NC · Sounds like Billy Strings, Sierra Hull, Mighty Poplar, Tray Wellington
Multi-instrumentalist Luke leads a band rooted in bluegrass tradition while writing toward a more personal voice — pickers' chops, songwriter's aims.
Drummer-singer Sean Trischka and guitarist Stash Wyslouch as a duo — bluegrass picking wired to top-40 hooks and lush harmony on their debut Satan's Junction.
Sounds like Billy Strings, Punch Brothers, Mighty Poplar, Kitchen Dwellers
Contemporary Celtic trio from Fife driving Scottish and Irish tune traditions through rock and funk energy, with original songs and soundscapes between.
From Fife, Scotland · Sounds like Talisk, Breabach, Lau, Kan
North Carolina collective playing son jarocho — the Veracruz string-and-zapateado tradition — and building community around the fandango, dance floor included.
Sounds like Los Cojolites, Radio Jarocho, Son de Madera
Winston-Salem progressive R&B — gospel, funk, and hip-hop bent slightly askew; featured on Barack Obama's 2019 year-end playlist, and still climbing.
From Winston-Salem, NC · Sounds like Anderson .Paak, Steve Lacy, Leon Bridges, Durand Bernarr
Jamie Collins, Martha Spencer and Brett Morris sing Blue Ridge standards and originals in honeyed three-part harmony, with clogging shoes on.
Sounds like Alice Gerrard, The Carter Family, Anna & Elizabeth
North Carolina Piedmont a cappella group singing together since 1972 in the jubilee style that runs back to the 19th century.
Sounds like The Fairfield Four, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Fisk Jubilee Singers
Young Seattle-rooted string band who grew up playing together, giving old-time a fuller, denser and more propulsive sound than the form usually allows.
From Seattle, WA · Sounds like Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves, Foghorn Stringband, Anna & Elizabeth
Columbia, South Carolina five-piece splitting the difference between traditional bluegrass and modern jamgrass, at speed — porch tunes with race-car engines.
From Columbia, SC · Sounds like Billy Strings, Greensky Bluegrass, Kitchen Dwellers
Banjo pioneer Tony Trischka built this tribute from tapes of Earl Scruggs and John Hartford jamming at Scruggs's house, transcribing the solos note for note so others could play them.
Sounds like Earl Scruggs, John Hartford, Béla Fleck, Alison Brown
IBMA Momentum-winning banjoist leading a band of broad, thoroughly composed new-acoustic instrumentals — cerebral and intentional without ever getting cold.
Sounds like Béla Fleck, Punch Brothers, Jake Blount, Sierra Hull
North Carolina trio playing son huasteco from Hidalgo, Mexico — soaring improvised fiddle, falsetto harmony, and jarana-and-huapanguera drive, tradition kept dancing.
Sounds like Los Camperos de Valles, Son de Carolina, Los Cojolites
Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno write future-leaning indie folk on an old-time backbone, sung in the tightly wound harmony style they both grew up inside.
From Durham, NC · Sounds like Watchhouse, Anna & Elizabeth, The Milk Carton Kids, Bonny Light Horseman
Young western North Carolina band chasing the spirit rather than the surface of first-generation bluegrass — raw, driving and deliberately unsanitized.
From Asheville, NC · Sounds like The Po' Ramblin' Boys, Del McCoury Band, Flatt & Scruggs
The University of North Carolina's audition-only student bluegrass band, playing traditional and contemporary repertoire steeped in local tradition since 2016.
From Chapel Hill, NC · Sounds like Steep Canyon Rangers, Chatham County Line
South Central Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist who plays prewar blues, rags and string-band music as inheritance rather than revival — his family's Great Migration route, run backwards.
From Los Angeles, CA · Sounds like Dom Flemons, Hubby Jenkins, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Rhiannon Giddens
North Carolina Piedmont dance caller of more than 30 years and a founder of Dare to be Square — everyone dances, no experience required.
Flatpicking bluegrass trio out of the North Carolina Piedmont — traditional repertoire played clean and quick.
Sounds like Tony Rice, Chatham County Line
Dance caller, flatfoot dancer and old-time musician — over forty years a Green Grass Clogger, dance consultant on the film Songcatcher, and author of Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics.
From Asheville, NC
Young Boone, North Carolina band honoring traditional bluegrass with a warm, contemporary edge — mountain-town roots played forward.
From Boone, NC · Sounds like Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road, Tray Wellington Band
Durham-area string band playing the traditional old-time music of the southern Appalachians, tuned for a square dance floor rather than a listening room.
From Durham, NC · Sounds like Earl White Stringband, Foghorn Stringband
Set times below cover Friday October 2 and Saturday October 3. Several artists play more than once across the weekend; the listed slot is their main stage set.
October 1-3, 2026. Thursday October 1 is a kickoff at The Corner on N.C. State's Centennial Campus; the main festival runs Friday October 2 and Saturday October 3 across downtown Raleigh.
Yes. Admission to the festival and to the Thursday kickoff is free. It is produced for the community by the Raleigh nonprofit PineCone.
Bluegrass, old-time and Americana form the spine, alongside gospel quartet singing, Venezuelan llanera, son jarocho, son huasteco, Celtic music from Scotland, Icelandic folk and North Carolina R&B.
Four outdoor stages downtown — City Plaza, Davie Street, PineCone and Martin Street — plus the City of Raleigh Museum on Fayetteville Street for artist interviews and author talks.
Yes. Martin Street Stage hosts a square dance from 7:30 to 10:30 on both Friday and Saturday, with Phil Jamison and Nancy Mamlin calling.
Going to Raleigh Wide Open 2026? Get tickets ↗
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