Randolph County Indiana Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival
Every summer, a small county seat in eastern Indiana becomes an unlikely gathering place for one of the most distinctive sounds in American music. In Winchester, the county seat of Randolph County, musicians and listeners travel from far beyond the county line to spend three late-July days with the Hawaiian steel guitar, an instrument whose gliding tones carry the memory of island ballrooms and early radio. The Randolph County Indiana Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival is the occasion, and its home is the Towne Square Community Centre, where concerts, workshops and jam sessions fill the programme from Thursday through Saturday. What sets this festival apart is the depth of its roots. The City of Winchester traces the gathering back to nineteen seventy-five, when a local cabinetmaker who also built steel guitars invited fellow enthusiasts into his basement. From that modest room, the city says, grew an internationally respected festival that the city describes, in its own wording, as one of the world’s longest-running celebrations of Hawaiian steel guitar music.
About the Festival
The festival is organised by the Aloha International Steel Guitar Club, whose initials appear in its own announcements as AISGC. The club’s twenty twenty-four announcement billed the event as the AISGC Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival, while the City of Winchester’s own festival page heads its account with the fuller form Hawaiian Steel Guitar Convention and Festival. Older specialist layers print the gathering as the Aloha International Steel Guitar Club Convention and as the Aloha International Steel Guitar Convention. Each name form is left exactly as its layer prints it here: a club convention that widened into a public festival without losing its club heart.
At its centre, the event remains what it has always been, a meeting of players. The city’s general account describes musicians and fans from around the globe gathering in Winchester in late July for concerts, workshops and jam sessions celebrating the Hawaiian steel guitar. The twenty twenty-four edition, documented by the organiser’s own site, added guest artists from Hawaii, a seminar led by a noted player, a Saturday performance by a Nashville steel guitarist, and further seminars, jam sessions and question-and-answer sessions.
Winchester itself is part of the appeal. It is the county seat of Randolph County, a working county town rather than a resort, and the festival’s venue, the Towne Square Community Centre, sits at the middle of that ordinary civic life. Recent editions documented by the organiser and by specialist layers have all been held at the centre, whose name those layers print with the Centre spelling.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Festival name | Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival |
| Host town | Winchester, Indiana |
| County | Randolph County |
| County seat | Winchester is the county seat of Randolph County |
| Venue | Towne Square Community Centre |
| Organiser | Aloha International Steel Guitar Club (AISGC) |
| Timing | Three days in late July, Thursday to Saturday |
| Origin | A nineteen seventy-five basement gathering at Charles Moore’s home, as the city states it |
| Admission | Festival days free in the twenty sixteen and twenty twenty-six layers; the Saturday luau ticketed in the listing layer |
| Documented editions | Twenty sixteen, twenty twenty-four and twenty twenty-six |
History
The City of Winchester states the beginning plainly. In nineteen seventy-five, Charles Moore, a Winchester cabinetmaker and steel guitar builder, invited fellow enthusiasts to gather in his basement. The small meeting, the city says, grew into an internationally respected festival. Moore was not only the host of that first gathering; the city also records that he crafted Holiday Steel Guitars, instruments of his own making, so the man who opened his basement to the players also put hand-built steel guitars into players’ hands.
For a useful comparison, see the Randolph County Indiana Mom, Baseball and Apple Pie Festival for another county festival.
The city calls Winchester’s festival, in its own wording, one of the world’s longest-running celebrations of Hawaiian steel guitar music, running for over fifty years. The organiser’s twenty twenty-four announcement frames the milestone slightly differently, stating that twenty twenty-four commemorates the fiftieth year since the first ever steel guitar festival took place in Charles Moore’s basement in Winchester. The two accounts sit a year apart in implication, and this article leaves them exactly as each layer states them, side by side and unreconciled.
Behind the festival stands a wider Hoosier connection that the city page offers as background. Indiana’s link to Hawaiian music, the city explains, runs through early twentieth-century Hawaiian guitar schools, radio programmes and performers, when the steel guitar’s sound travelled far inland and took hold in Midwestern parlours and studios.
The documented editions anchor the later history. A specialist music layer records the twenty sixteen convention running from Thursday the fourteenth to Saturday the sixteenth of July at the Winchester Town Square Community Centre, free and open to the public, with all-day performances, seminars and a Saturday night luau, and with steel guitarist Leonard T. Zinn as the named guest of honour. The organiser’s own site documents the twenty twenty-four festival at the Towne Square Community Centre from Thursday the twenty-fifth to Saturday the twenty-seventh of July.
What to Expect
Three days of steel guitar, played in nearly every way the instrument allows, is the heart of the experience. The city’s account promises concerts, workshops and jam sessions, and the organiser’s twenty twenty-four programme shows how that promise is kept: daily performances by guest artists from Hawaii, named in the announcement as Bobby Ingano and Joseph Zayac; a Thursday seminar by Alan Akaka; a Saturday performance by Nashville steel guitarist Doyle Grisham; and, threaded through the schedule, more seminars, jam sessions and question-and-answer sessions.
The playing is only half of it. A festival built by a club of enthusiasts runs on informal exchange: conversations about vintage instruments, impromptu picking between scheduled sets, and the chance to hear how differently the same instrument speaks in different hands. The Saturday luau, recorded in both the twenty sixteen specialist layer and the twenty twenty-six listing layer, gives the weekend its social peak, a shared meal in the Hawaiian spirit transplanted to an Indiana community centre. Visitors who play no instrument at all are not outsiders here; the event is framed by its layers as an open invitation rather than a closed convention.
The city names celebrated performers who have played at the festival over the years, and the list maps the instrument’s own history: Genoa Keawe, Alvino Rey, Alan Akaka, Jerry Byrd and Mālie Lyman.
Planning Your Visit
The practical core of a visit is simple: three days in late July, Thursday through Saturday, at the Towne Square Community Centre in Winchester. The documented editions all follow that shape: the twenty twenty-four festival ran from Thursday the twenty-fifth to Saturday the twenty-seventh of July, and the listing layer’s twenty twenty-six edition runs Thursday the twenty-third to Saturday the twenty-fifth of July. Anyone planning around a future edition should anchor on that pattern and confirm the exact days against the organiser’s own announcement before travelling.
Entry costs are unusually gentle for a festival of this standing. The twenty sixteen specialist layer describes the convention days as free and open to the public, and the twenty twenty-six listing layer likewise describes the festival as free to the public, with one exception in that same layer: the luau is ticketed. Neither the organiser nor the city documents a general admission price.
Winchester is the county seat of Randolph County, in eastern Indiana, and the Towne Square Community Centre is the festival’s documented home for recent editions. Arrive on the Thursday if the full arc matters, since the documented programme opens with a seminar on the first day and builds toward Saturday. Those who can stay only one day should choose Saturday, when the layers place both a featured performance and the luau.
A Sample Festival Itinerary
A three-day visit built from the documented editions might run as follows. Thursday belongs to orientation and learning: settle in, hear the opening performances, and take in the Thursday seminar, which the organiser’s twenty twenty-four programme gave to Alan Akaka, before the evening loosens into jam sessions. Friday is the deep-listening day, given over to the daily performances by guest artists, with seminars and question-and-answer sessions filling the gaps. Saturday brings the weekend’s peaks in sequence: the featured Saturday performance, given in twenty twenty-four by Nashville steel guitarist Doyle Grisham, and then the Saturday luau, placed on Saturday night by the twenty sixteen layer and described as ticketed by the twenty twenty-six listing layer.
How This Festival Differs
The name Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival is a generic one, shared, confusingly, by events that have nothing to do with Winchester. The Hawaiian Steel Guitar Association holds a festival of its own, staged in Santa Cruz, California, in twenty twenty-six and in Waikiki in twenty twenty-five. Separately, the Hawaii Institute for Music Enrichment and Learning Experiences runs a Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival series at malls on O’ahu, together with festivals on Hawaii Island and Maui. Those are different organisations, in other states, with their own dates, venues and programmes, and none of their details belong to the Winchester event. What the Winchester festival shares with them is only the instrument itself. Its own identity is older and more specific: a club-born gathering in an Indiana county seat, traced by its city to a nineteen seventy-five basement.
Festival Checklist
- Confirm the year’s exact dates against the organiser’s own announcement before booking travel.
- Plan for late July in eastern Indiana, with light clothing for warm days and a layer for air-conditioned sessions.
- Reserve Saturday evening for the luau, and expect that part of the weekend to be ticketed.
- Arrive on Thursday if you want the opening seminar as well as the performances.
- Bring an instrument if you play; jam sessions are a documented part of the programme.
- Leave time between sets for conversations with players and builders.
- Carry a notebook for the names of performers, tunings and recordings mentioned in sessions.
Beyond the Festival Hall
Winchester rewards a slower look once the music pauses. It is the county seat of Randolph County, and its civic centre carries the ordinary dignity of an Indiana courthouse town, the setting that has framed this festival since the gathering outgrew Charles Moore’s basement. The Towne Square Community Centre belongs to that same civic fabric rather than to a tourist strip, so a festival weekend doubles as a small portrait of the town itself. The city’s own festival page, which links readers onward to the club’s site and social page, treats the event as a point of civic pride.
Why the Festival Matters
A basement gathering of enthusiasts is not the usual seed of a half-century institution, yet that is the origin the City of Winchester records, and the documented editions across twenty sixteen, twenty twenty-four and twenty twenty-six show the seed still bearing fruit in the same town and the same hall. The festival matters because it preserves a repertoire and a technique, the Hawaiian steel guitar’s singing slide, in a living setting where masters teach and guests from Hawaii perform. It matters, too, as proof that a specialised art does not need a metropolis to survive; it needs a convener, a club and a town willing to host.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did the festival begin?
The City of Winchester states that the festival began in nineteen seventy-five, when Winchester cabinetmaker and steel guitar builder Charles Moore invited fellow enthusiasts to gather in his basement, and the city says that small meeting grew into an internationally respected festival. The organiser’s twenty twenty-four announcement frames the same beginning as the first ever steel guitar festival in Moore’s basement; both layers’ wording is recorded here without blending them.
Which musicians has the city named among past performers?
The city’s account names Genoa Keawe, Alvino Rey, Alan Akaka, Jerry Byrd and Mālie Lyman among the celebrated performers who have played at the festival. The organiser’s twenty twenty-four announcement adds edition-specific names: guest artists Bobby Ingano and Joseph Zayac performing daily, Alan Akaka leading a Thursday seminar, and Nashville steel guitarist Doyle Grisham performing on the Saturday.
What happens besides the concerts?
Workshops and jam sessions stand alongside the concerts in the city’s general account, and the twenty twenty-four programme adds seminars and question-and-answer sessions. The social peak of the weekend is the Saturday luau, recorded by the twenty sixteen specialist layer as a Saturday night luau and described by the twenty twenty-six listing layer as the ticketed part of an otherwise free festival.
Do the festival days carry an entry charge?
The twenty sixteen specialist layer describes the convention days as free and open to the public, and the twenty twenty-six listing layer describes the festival days the same way, free to the public with the luau ticketed. Neither the organiser nor the city documents a general admission price.
What to Expect From the Next Randolph County Indiana Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival
How often is Randolph County Indiana Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival held?
The documented record shows editions recurring in late July across the years the layers cover: a convention in twenty sixteen, a festival in twenty twenty-four and a listed edition in twenty twenty-six, each running Thursday through Saturday. The layers document those editions individually rather than printing a standing rule about frequency, so the honest summary is the pattern itself.
When is the next Randolph County Indiana Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival?
The latest edition documented in the layers read here is the one a festival listing layer lists for Thursday the twenty-third to Saturday the twenty-fifth of July, twenty twenty-six, at Winchester, described as free to the public with a ticketed luau. The layers announce nothing beyond that listing, so a reader planning further ahead should watch for the organiser’s own announcement of the next edition, expected on the documented pattern to keep the late-July, Thursday-to-Saturday shape.
Will the dates change?
They have held a consistent shape without holding fixed days. Twenty sixteen ran from the fourteenth to the sixteenth of July, twenty twenty-four from the twenty-fifth to the twenty-seventh, and the twenty twenty-six listing runs from the twenty-third to the twenty-fifth, always Thursday to Saturday in late July, but never on identical calendar days. A future edition could shift its exact days within that pattern, which is why the organiser’s announcement for the year remains the document to trust.
Closing
Half a century after a cabinetmaker opened his basement to fellow enthusiasts, the Randolph County Indiana Hawaiian Steel Guitar Festival still does the simple thing it has always done: it brings the players to Winchester, opens the doors of the Towne Square Community Centre, and lets the steel guitar sing for three days in late July. For anyone who loves the instrument, those three days are worth the trip.
