Merlefest, Part 1, Sewerfest

I had never heard of Merlefest until my friend Rachel asked me to go. Merlefest is a four day music festival that takes place on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro N.C. It focuses on Bluegrass, Folk, Roots, and Americana and is a fundraiser for the college.

Rachel wanted to attend because she is a huge Lyle Lovett fan. Lovett played on Saturday. We noticed that the Doobie Brothers were playing on Friday night and as I love the Doobie Brothers, we bought tickets for Friday as well. We bought tickets for both days before we found out that there really aren't any hotels with availability nearby, so we decided to camp. I am a camper. Rachel is not. She was putting all her trust in me.

After looking at our camping options on the Merlefest website, the one that caught my attention was called "Sewerfest" as it's located on the property of the Wilkesboro wastewater treatment plant. It is run by the Wilkesboro Fire Dept. as a fundraiser. They said they have plenty of hot water and don't stink. I read some reviews that raved about Sewerfest, so I booked a campsite.


The view from our campsite. It felt very private.



At Sewerfest there is a crowded area of campsites near the plant with it's large brown lagoon and the office, and then there are some remote sites up on a hill above it all. We had one of these remote sites. The benefit of being a bit farther out is that Sewerfest is a festival in and of itself. There are crowds of banjo, mandolin and guitar players picking away into the early hours of the morning. (click to watch video) We stayed up on Friday night past 2am in an empty garage listening to a bunch of pickers jam. On Saturday night we could faintly hear the party going on late into the night but we turned in early, around midnight. We were pooped.



The negative is the bathroom facilities. You would think that being a wastewater treatment plant, this is the one thing they'd have down pat, but alas. They have two bath houses in the main camping area and they were dirty. I am pretty sure that the bathrooms and showers were not cleaned every day, if at all, and one of the toilets was clogged. Nobody fixed it while we were there. Out in the remote camping areas there are portapotties that were OK, but they also got pretty gross by the end of our stay. When we arrived and realized that we only had portapotties near our campsite I feared Rachel would become despondent, but she handled it all like a trooper.



The portapotties nearest to our campsite.

When it's all said and done, I'd consider staying at Sewerfest again. Besides the fact that whenever we told someone we were staying at Sewerfest we got a nod of respect, they had convenient shuttles to and from the concert and we didn't need to cook at our campsite. The firemen sold very good food.  If next time we are friendlier at the late night jams, we'll probably have a great time there.

Plus, I got some of the best sleep I've ever had camping. The roar of the fountain in the middle of the large brown lagoon drowns out the crunch of leaves from a passing critter or the hoot of an owl. Only those pesky early morning birds were loud enough to wake me up.

Stay tuned for articles about the concert itself.