Raw States
Virginia Highlands Festival
Abingdon, VA · Arts & Culture
- When
- July 23 – August 1, 2027
- Where
- Historic Downtown Abingdon · Abingdon · VA
- Cost
- Not confirmed
- Status
- Approximate: based on past editions, not announced yet
The Virginia Highlands Festival fills historic Abingdon for ten days each summer with juried arts and crafts, antiques, music, and Appalachian culture events. First held in 1948 as an apple festival, it is one of the oldest continuously running arts festivals in the state. The 2026 edition was its 77th year.
The history within reach
- Virginia Highlands Festivalsame spot
The Virginia Highlands Festival fills historic Abingdon for ten days each summer with juried arts and crafts, antiques, music, and Appalachian culture events.
Robert Porterfield came home from a Broadway with no work to a valley with no cash and matched the two problems: forty cents or the equivalent in produce got you a seat, and the company ate what the audience brought.
- Trail Days12 mi
Damascus, a town of about 800 people on the Appalachian Trail, swells to an estimated 25,000 visitors each May for a reunion of thru-hikers, gear vendors and trail culture centered on Tent City.
A logging railroad so slow uphill that crews named it the Creeper became thirty four miles of rail trail, most of it downhill from Whitetop if you take the shuttle, which almost everyone does.
Ralph Peer set up portable recording gear over a hat warehouse on State Street, took an advertisement in the local paper offering fifty dollars a side, and waited.