Blue Plum Festival

The Blue Plum Festival began in 1999 as a way to bring people into the heart of Downtown Johnson City and showcase the music, arts, culture, businesses, and energy of the community. In its early years, Blue Plum quite literally took over the streets of downtown, with festival stages, vendors, food, and activities stretching along Main Street, Roan Street, Market Street, and surrounding downtown blocks. What began as a small community effort grew into a major regional festival, eventually featuring multiple stages of music alongside arts and crafts, food vendors, a 5K run and walk, the Johnson City Omnium cycling races, children's activities, and other unique experiences.

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After 16 years in the streets of downtown, the festival moved to Founders Park in 2016, bringing the music, food, art, and family fun together in a centralized festival setting. Founders Park became home to Blue Plum for the next several years, creating a new chapter for the festival while keeping it firmly rooted in Downtown Johnson City. The festival continued to evolve, adding experiences such as wellness and kids' areas, a Ferris wheel, silent discos, and more while continuing to bring nationally recognized, regional, and local artists to Johnson City. The festival took a two-year pause in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, returning to Founders Park in 2022. In 2023, Blue Plum moved once again, this time to King Commons, where it remained for its final three festivals in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

 

After more than 25 years, more than 200 musical acts including Doc Watson, Nickel Creek, The Wood Brothers, The Mavericks, Dustbowl Revival and countless regional and local artists, and more than half a million people welcomed to Downtown Johnson City, the 2025 festival became the final chapter of the event. The decision to step away was rooted not in a lack of success, but in a sense of accomplishment: the festival had fulfilled the mission that created it. Blue Plum was one of the first events to consistently draw people downtown, and today the city is filled with an incredible variety of events and celebrations that continue that work. We are proud of the role Blue Plum played in helping build that vibrant downtown culture—and excited to find new ways to bring people together in the years ahead.