Arkansas Folklife Festival

06/07/2026

🎻✨ VOLUNTEERS NEEDED: BE PART OF ARKANSAS HISTORY! ✨🎻

The inaugural Arkansas Folklife Festival is coming to Riverfront Park in North Little Rock, June 26–28, 2026, and we need passionate volunteers to help bring The People’s 250 to life!

From welcoming guests and assisting artists to helping with storytelling, crafts, music, foodways, and community activities, volunteers are at the heart of this celebration of Arkansas culture.

👕 BONUS: The first 100 volunteers to sign up will receive this exclusive “I Volunteered at the First Arkansas Folklife Festival” commemorative t-shirt!

Join us as we celebrate the people, traditions, and communities that make Arkansas home. Whether you can help for a few hours or all weekend, we’d love to have you on the team.

❤️ Free festival
🎶 Live music, crafts, foodways, storytelling, and more
🤝 Meet artists and culture bearers from across Arkansas
🏆 Be part of Arkansas history

Sign up today and claim your shirt before they’re gone!

https://www.arkansasfolklifefestival.org/about/get-involved/volunteer

05/30/2026

Grammy winners Lucinda Williams and Bobby Rush join Nick Shoulders, Willi Carlisle, Dylan Earl, Iyuana Childs,

05/30/2026

𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐀𝐒, 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐋.

The full music lineup for the inaugural Arkansas Folklife Festival is here.

Join us June 26–28 at Riverfront Park in North Little Rock for a free, three-day celebration of Arkansas culture featuring Grammy winners Lucinda Williams and Bobby Rush, along with Nick Shoulders, Willi Carlisle, Dylan Earl, Iyuana Childs, and dozens more artists and tradition bearers from across the state.

But this is more than a music festival.

You'll experience:

✨ Live music across multiple stages
✨ Dance traditions from across cultures
✨ Foodways and culinary heritage
✨ Storytelling and community traditions
✨ Craft demonstrations and artisans
✨ The Arkansas Movement Music Parade beginning at the Clinton Presidential Library
✨ The Arkansas Gospel Homecoming & Dinner on the Ground
✨ Cultural experiences representing Arkansas's six culturesheds

𝐎𝐟 𝐀𝐫𝐤𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐬. 𝐁𝐲 𝐀𝐫𝐤𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐬. 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐫𝐤𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐬.

Part of the Smithsonian Folklife's Of the People: Smithsonian Festival of Festivals initiative and Arkansas's contribution to America 250, this free festival celebrates the people, traditions, stories, and cultures that make Arkansas unique.

📍 Riverfront Park, North Little Rock
📅 June 26–28, 2026
🎟️ Free Admission | All Are Welcome

Learn more and view the full lineup:
🔗 arkansasfolklifefestival.org

North Little Rock Tourism Argenta Arts District City of North Little Rock - Government
AY Magazine Arkansas Heritage

05/30/2026

Thank you, KUAF 91.3 Public Radio and Ozarks at Large for the feature! Can't wait to see everyone June 26-28 at North Little Rock Riverfront Park.

North Little Rock Tourism Argenta Arts District

The Arkansas Folklife Festival — a free, three-day celebration of the state's six cultural regions — comes to Riverfront Park in North Little Rock June 26-28, headlined by Bobby Rush and Lucinda Williams.

05/29/2026

Thank you to our presenting media sponsor, AY Media Group! Check out this feature in AY Magazine!
P.S. Full music lineup dropping in the next 24 hours!

North Little Rock Tourism Argenta Arts District

What do you get when you combine a historic national birthday with a party showcasing Arkansas food, crafts,

05/18/2026

“What is Arkansas culture?”

That was the question asked in Pine Bluff during one of the Arkansas Folklife Festival’s community culture-shift gatherings — and the answers weren’t simple. They were stories about blues and BBQ, church and river life, family recipes, murals, hip-hop, catfish, front porches, dance floors, resilience, and pride.

This is exactly what the Arkansas Folklife Festival is about: real people telling the story of Arkansas in their own words.

The Delta is not one thing. It is music, memory, movement, food, faith, creativity, and community carried forward across generations. As we build this festival, voices from every Arkansas cultureshed are helping shape what this statewide celebration becomes.

The Arkansas Folklife Festival | FREE | June 26–28 comes to North Little Rock June 26–28, 2026 as part of the Smithsonian’s “Of the People: Festival of Festivals” initiative during America’s 250th anniversary year — what we’re calling The People’s 250.

This is Arkansas, told by Arkansans.

arkansasfolklifefestival.org

05/13/2026

It’s a collection of stories, songs, recipes, dances, traditions, accents, memories, and communities that deserve to be seen, heard, and celebrated together.

The Arkansas Folklife Festival was created to bring those worlds together.

For one weekend, NLR Riverfront Park becomes a living portrait of Arkansas — from Delta blues and Ozark fiddle tunes to storytelling, quilting, foodways, dance, craft, and the people carrying these traditions forward every single day.

This is not culture behind glass.
This is living culture, shared in real time.

Built by Arkansans, shaped by communities across all six culturesheds, and created as Arkansas’s contribution to America’s 250th anniversary, this festival is about belonging, connection, and pride in who we are.

Free. Open to everyone.
June 26–28, 2026
Riverfront Park • North Little Rock

We are stronger together.

05/11/2026

Listen to Rachel Reynolds, Executive Director of the Arkansas Folklife Festival, explain what this statewide celebration is all about! Over the last 10 months, the festival team traveled across Arkansas’s six culturesheds listening to communities, gathering stories, and building a festival shaped by the people and traditions of Arkansas itself as part of the Smithsonian’s “Festival of Festivals” for America 250.

Don't miss this inaugural event!

For more, visit arkansasfolklifefestival.org