Bourbon County Kansas FortFest Blues Festival
Late September brings two days of blues to a riverfront park in Fort Scott, the Bourbon County seat, where guitars carry across the grass from Friday evening into Saturday afternoon. Around the music sit a car show, a bike show and a kids fair, and the gate, such as it is, stands open because admission is free and kept free on purpose. The county newspaper publishes the event under the single joined word FortFest, while a state liquor-licence layer prints the same weekend as Fort Fest, and the organiser’s social page carries the longer form Fort Scott FortFest. Those three printings are carried through this article exactly as they appear, never blended into one settled spelling. The sheet behind this article frames the festival with county and state words first, and its Blues word matches the two days of blues music the county newspaper documents, even though no layer prints the full county-first title.
About FortFest
FortFest is a two-day blues festival held at Riverfront Park in Fort Scott, hosted by an organisation called Care to Share and organised, on the county newspaper’s account, by that group’s vice president, Cory Bryars. The newspaper describes Care to Share as an all-volunteer nonprofit established in two thousand seven, one that gives emotional and financial support to cancer patients and to the people who care for them. That mission is not background decoration here, because the festival’s best-known policy grows straight out of it: admission is free, and free deliberately, so that patients whose treatment may have cost them income are never priced out of their own community’s weekend. The documented programme pairs the music with machinery and family ground, a car show, a bike show and a kids fair, with food vendors feeding the crowd. The fullest single account comes from the county newspaper, which covers the festival’s origin, its venue and its running order in depth, while a state licence layer and a city-meeting account independently corroborate the twenty twenty-four edition.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Published names | FortFest in the county newspaper; Fort Fest in a state liquor-licence layer; Fort Scott FortFest as the organiser’s social-page name; the forms are recorded unmerged |
| Host town | Fort Scott, Bourbon County |
| County seat | Fort Scott is the Bourbon County seat, on a county reference layer |
| Venue | Riverfront Park, Fort Scott |
| Host | Care to Share, hosted by the organisation and organised by its vice president, Cory Bryars, on the county newspaper’s account |
| Timing | The last weekend of September, on the county newspaper’s history account |
| Documented editions | Twenty twenty-four, twenty twenty-five and twenty twenty-six |
| Programme | Two days of blues music, a car show, a bike show, a kids fair and food vendors |
| Admission | Free, as the county newspaper states, and free deliberately so cancer patients who may have lost income can attend |
| Origin | Began in twenty twenty-two as a private housewarming party, on the county newspaper’s account |
History
The county newspaper’s telling of the origin is unusually personal for a festival history. FortFest began in twenty twenty-two, not with a ribbon cutting or a committee’s launch, but as a housewarming party, a private gathering that happened to land on a meaningful weekend. That weekend mattered because Care to Share had previously held a kid-focused Fall Festival on the last weekend of September, and that earlier festival had been discontinued. The housewarming occupied the slot the Fall Festival left behind, and what began in a home setting then grew outward: the gathering moved to Riverfront Park and, along the way, added a car show and an expanded kids fair to sit alongside the music. The discontinued Fall Festival is therefore the predecessor in this story, the event whose September weekend FortFest inherited, and it should never be confused with FortFest itself. Care to Share’s own establishment in two thousand seven belongs to the organisation’s history, a decade and a half before the housewarming, and is recorded here in the organiser’s account rather than as any founding date for the festival. One further layer deserves a caution: a city-meeting summary generated by artificial intelligence circulates variant forms of the organiser’s name and a variant spelling of the organiser’s personal name, and those variants are regarded as unreliable, so this article relies only on the forms the county newspaper prints. Fort Scott’s standing as the Bourbon County seat comes from a county reference layer and is placed here in the town’s account, as the frame within which a small housewarming grew into a park festival.
What to Expect
The heart of the weekend is the music: two days of blues, on the county newspaper’s programme summary, supported by a car show, a bike show, a kids fair and food vendors. The fullest running order belongs to the twenty twenty-six edition, which the newspaper published on Friday, September twenty-fifth of that year. Friday’s music began at six in the evening, with Brody Buster playing first and the Kurt Allen Band following at eight, and Friday was the vendors’ day in a particular sense, because food vendors were the only vendors present that day. Saturday opened at nine in the morning with the car show, brought the bike show and the kids fair in at noon, and returned to music from one in the afternoon, when Kelsey Miles played ahead of Haley Burke and the Hawks at three. Those performer names belong to the twenty twenty-six account alone and are not presented as a standing lineup. The twenty twenty-four weekend, described in a September city-meeting account of that year, carried a somewhat different mix: a new bike show, an expanded car show, a Sunday gospel celebration and a revived kids’ fall festival folded into the weekend. That revived kids’ fall festival was a component of the twenty twenty-four Fort Fest weekend, a distinct thing from the discontinued Fall Festival of earlier years, and the two are kept apart in this article just as the layers keep them apart.
Planning Your Visit
The documented editions give a visitor three fixed points. The earliest firmly dated one falls on Friday, September twenty-seventh, twenty twenty-four, when a state liquor-licence layer records a special event under the printing Fort Fest (friday), with Care to Share named as sponsor; the layer is reported here in words only, and none of its printed numbers or values are reproduced. The twenty twenty-five edition is documented more lightly, through photograph captions in the county newspaper reading FortFest 2025 at Riverfront Park, which establish that the festival happened that year at that venue without supplying a programme. The twenty twenty-six edition, Friday, September twenty-fifth to Saturday, September twenty-sixth, is the fully documented one, published by the county newspaper on the Friday itself. Riverfront Park is the ground to aim for in Fort Scott, and the shape of the weekend rewards arriving Friday if the evening music matters to you, because Friday carries two acts and the food vendors, while Saturday spreads wider, with the car show in the morning, the bike show and kids fair from noon and music through the afternoon. Admission, on the county newspaper’s statement, is free, and the reason is part of the visit: the festival is kept free deliberately so that cancer patients who may have lost income can attend alongside everyone else.
For a useful comparison, see the Bourbon County Kansas Good Ol’ Days Festival for another county festival.
A Sample Weekend Itinerary
A visitor following the twenty twenty-six account could build the weekend this way. Arrive at Riverfront Park on Friday in time for the six o’clock start, hear Brody Buster open the music, eat from the food vendors who hold Friday to themselves, and stay for the Kurt Allen Band at eight. Return Saturday morning for the car show from nine, wander the rows of vehicles through the late morning, and let the bike show and the kids fair take over from noon. The afternoon belongs to the stage again, with Kelsey Miles from one and Haley Burke and the Hawks at three, so a family could plausibly spend the whole of Saturday inside the park without repeating themselves. That itinerary is drawn entirely from the county newspaper’s twenty twenty-six running order, and other years arrange their elements differently, as the twenty twenty-four account’s gospel celebration and revived kids’ fall festival show.
How FortFest Compares
The comparison that matters most here is with the festival’s own predecessor. Care to Share once held a kid-focused Fall Festival on the last weekend of September, and that event was discontinued; FortFest began in twenty twenty-two as a housewarming party on that same late-September weekend, later moving to Riverfront Park and adding a car show and an expanded kids fair. The predecessor was, on the newspaper’s description, centred on children, while FortFest is centred on blues music with family ground around it, so the inheritance is a date and a host organisation rather than a programme. A second comparison sits inside twenty twenty-four: that year’s Fort Fest weekend included a revived kids’ fall festival as one component among its bike show, expanded car show and Sunday gospel celebration. A revival inside one year’s weekend is not the old Fall Festival restored as the headline event, and it is certainly not FortFest itself, and keeping those three threads separate is what the layers, read carefully, support.
A Visitor’s Checklist
- Aim for Riverfront Park in Fort Scott on the last weekend of September
- Arrive by six on Friday to catch the first act of the evening
- Remember that Friday’s vendors are food vendors only
- Leave Saturday morning open for the car show from nine
- Bring children at noon on Saturday for the bike show and kids fair
- Stay for the Saturday afternoon music rather than leaving at midday
- Carry no admission money, since entry is documented as free
- Treat published lineups as belonging to their own year only
Beyond the Festival Grounds
The facts gathered for this article stay close to the park and the organisation, so the beyond section stays modest. Fort Scott itself is the Bourbon County seat, which the county reference layer records, and the festival’s ground at Riverfront Park sits within that county-seat town. The organisation behind the weekend, Care to Share, works in Fort Scott year-round on the county newspaper’s description, supporting cancer patients and their caregivers emotionally and financially with an all-volunteer membership, and the festival is best understood as the public, musical face of that local work rather than as a touring production that happens to stop here.
Why FortFest Matters
On the documented record, FortFest matters because of how plainly its purpose is stated. A volunteer-run blues festival that began, on the county newspaper’s account, as a housewarming party in twenty twenty-two has grown into a two-day park event with car and bike shows and a kids fair, yet its host has held one line throughout: admission stays free, and stays free deliberately, so that the very people Care to Share exists to support, cancer patients who may have lost income during treatment, can walk in without a calculation. In a festival landscape where the gate price is usually the first fact published, a festival whose first fact is the absence of one, for a stated human reason, is a genuinely unusual thing, and it is recorded here on the newspaper’s own statements.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is admission to FortFest really free, and why?
Yes, on the county newspaper’s account. The newspaper states that admission is free, and free deliberately, so that cancer patients who may have lost income can attend. The policy fits the host: Care to Share supports cancer patients and their caregivers, and the free gate keeps the festival open to the people at the centre of that work.
Which name is the festival actually published under?
Three forms appear in the layers, recorded unmerged: FortFest in the county newspaper, Fort Fest in a state liquor-licence layer from twenty twenty-four, and Fort Scott FortFest as the organiser’s social-page name, as the newspaper prints it. No single layer uses the sheet’s full county-first title.
What happened to the old Fall Festival?
Care to Share’s kid-focused Fall Festival, once held on the last weekend of September, was discontinued, on the county newspaper’s account. FortFest began in twenty twenty-two as a housewarming party on that same weekend and later moved to Riverfront Park. A revived kids’ fall festival appeared as a component of the twenty twenty-four weekend, which is a separate matter from the discontinued predecessor.
Who organises the festival?
The county newspaper names Care to Share as the host and its vice president, Cory Bryars, as the organiser. One AI-generated city-meeting summary prints variant forms of both names, and those variants are treated as unreliable, so only the newspaper’s forms are used here.
What to Expect From the Next Bourbon County Kansas FortFest Blues Festival
How often is Bourbon County Kansas FortFest Blues Festival held?
The documented pattern is yearly, anchored to the last weekend of September. That anchor comes from the county newspaper’s history account: the discontinued Fall Festival occupied the last weekend of September, the twenty twenty-two housewarming took that weekend, and the dated editions since, in twenty twenty-four, twenty twenty-five and twenty twenty-six, all fall in late September.
When is the next Bourbon County Kansas FortFest Blues Festival?
No future date is stated in the layers read, so none is invented here. The firm ground is the documented run: a Friday edition dated September twenty-seventh in twenty twenty-four, a caption-documented edition in twenty twenty-five, and the fully documented Friday, September twenty-fifth to Saturday, September twenty-sixth in twenty twenty-six, all consistent with the last weekend of September described in the history account.
Will the dates change?
The late-September placement has held across every documented edition, and it descends from the predecessor festival’s weekend rather than from a freshly chosen date each year. Within that placement, the exact Friday and Saturday naturally move with the calendar, and the twenty twenty-four edition even extended into a Sunday gospel celebration, so the weekend’s edges can flex while its September anchor, on the record so far, stays put.
Closing Thoughts
FortFest is a young festival with an old-fashioned clarity about itself. It began as a housewarming, grew into Riverfront Park, kept its predecessor’s September weekend and its host’s founding instinct, that nobody the organisation serves should be charged to join in. For a visitor, the offer is simple: two days of blues, polished chrome, children on the grass and no gate at all, in the Bourbon County seat, on the last weekend of September.
