Bristol Massachusetts Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival
On a September weekend in Westport, the Holy Ghost Grounds fill with guitar riffs, auction paddles and the smell of festival food, all in aid of a single child’s wish. The Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival pairs two days of live bands with live auctions, raffles and 50/50 drawings, and every part of the weekend is organised around fundraising for the charity A Wish Come True. Recent editions have carried anniversary billings in the thirties, and the printed schedules read like a roll call of regional rhythm and blues acts, with names such as Louie Leeman & Cheap Sneakers, Big Fish and Wild Nites taking their turns on the bill. When the last set ends, the money raised goes toward granting wishes for local children facing critical illnesses.
About the Festival
The festival’s core name is printed in two forms across the layers gathered for this article. The comma form, Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival, matches the core of the sheet title exactly, while poster and listing material also prints Westport Rock Rhythm & Blues Festival without the comma. Anniversary billings extend both shapes, appearing as 31st Annual Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival and as 31st Anniversary Westport Rock Rhythm & Blues Festival. The full sheet title, carrying its county and state prefix, is never printed exactly in any layer read, so those published forms are kept as they stand.
Westport sits in Bristol County, in the southeastern corner of Massachusetts. A reference layer names Taunton as the county seat of Bristol County, so Westport hosts the festival without being the seat of county government. The festival’s own fundraising layer and poster layers place the event at the Holy Ghost Grounds in Westport, and a listings layer gives the venue form as Westport Holy Ghost Club Inc. on Sodom Road. Those same grounds host the club’s own religious feast events during the year, separate occasions from this music festival.
The organising name also appears in two printed shapes. A listings layer names A Wish Come True as the organiser, while the form A Wish Come True, Inc. carries the fuller corporate styling. The festival’s own fundraising layer states plainly that the event supports that charity, whose purpose is granting wishes for local children facing critical illnesses. Each year the festival benefits one chosen child through the charity; for 2026 the beneficiary was a six-year-old from Fall River, referred to here only in those general terms.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
| Published name | Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival |
| Name form without comma | Westport Rock Rhythm & Blues Festival |
| Host town | Westport, Bristol County, Massachusetts |
| County seat | Taunton (Westport is not the county seat) |
| Venue | Holy Ghost Grounds, Westport |
| Venue form in listings | Westport Holy Ghost Club Inc., Sodom Road |
| Organiser named in listings | A Wish Come True |
| Charity supported | A Wish Come True, Inc. |
| Documented editions | 30th Anniversary, September 2025; 31st Anniversary, September 2026 |
| Admission as printed | Twenty dollars per day as a donation; children twelve and under free |
History
Anyone hoping to pin a founding year on this festival will search the gathered layers in vain, because no layer read states one. What the record offers instead is a pair of anniversary billings: the 2025 edition was billed as the 30th Anniversary, and the 2026 edition followed as the 31st Anniversary. Those numbers are reproduced here exactly as the posters and listings print them, and they are deliberately left unconverted. Turning an anniversary billing into a first-edition year would require arithmetic the sources themselves never perform, and editions can pause, restart or renumber for reasons no poster explains, so this article reports the billings and stops there.
For a useful comparison, see the Bristol Massachusetts South Coast Harvest Festival for another county festival.
The deeper history that the layers do support is the charity connection. The festival’s own fundraising layer describes the event as supporting A Wish Come True, an organisation devoted to granting wishes for local children facing critical illnesses. Each year’s festival benefits a chosen child, which gives the anniversary count a human anchor: the weekend had settled into a pattern of bands, auctions and drawings raising money for one family’s wish at a time.
The grounds carry their own longer story. The Holy Ghost Grounds in Westport are home to the Westport Holy Ghost Club, whose religious feast events run at the same site under the club’s own name. The music festival borrows that stage rather than owning it, and the distinction matters when scanning a Westport events calendar: a feast weekend at the grounds is the club’s religious celebration, while the rock, rhythm and blues weekend is the charity fundraiser described here. Both documented editions, the 2025 listing and the 2026 posters, describe the same format of scheduled bands, a donation-based gate, free entry for younger children and prize drawings woven between the music — a repeatable fundraising formula, with the music as the draw and the wish as the point.
What to Expect
Band music runs across both days on a printed schedule, and the lineups are the clearest window into the festival’s character. For the thirtieth anniversary edition in 2025, a listings layer prints schedules for Saturday and Sunday, with the Saturday music starting at one in the afternoon and the Sunday programme running to half past six. Acts named in that listing include Louie Leeman & Cheap Sneakers and Paul Petit & Double Shot — guitar-led rhythm and blues played by regional bands with followings of their own.
The thirty-first anniversary edition, held across Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 September 2026, spreads the music wider. Poster layers and the charity’s own fundraising layer print Big Fish, Shot in the Dark, Paul Petit & Southside and Likk for the Saturday, then Louie Leeman & Friends, All Horn’d Up and Wild Nites for the Sunday. Repeat appearances tell their own story here: the Leeman and Petit names return in different band configurations across both years, suggesting a stable of performers the festival calls on again and again.
Music is only part of the grounds’ activity. Live auctions run alongside the sets, giving bidders a reason to stay between bands, and raffles and 50/50 drawings are printed on the poster as part of the programme. Food is sold on site, and the 2026 poster even displays a grid of past festival T-shirt designs, a small archive of earlier editions worn into the artwork. Riders get their own welcome: a motorcycle admission special is part of the printed offer, described in the admission section below.
Weather writes the final footnote to the 2026 edition. A post-event layer dated 19 September 2026 reports that only the Saturday was actually held, because rain wiped out the Sunday, and that no rescheduled Sunday date had yet been set when the report was posted. The same report says the single day still raised more than thirty thousand dollars for the charity. Visitors should therefore treat the printed two-day schedule as the plan rather than a guarantee.
Planning Your Visit
Admission is quoted in donation form. Both the 2025 listing and the 2026 posters print twenty dollars per day as a donation, with children twelve and under admitted free. The 2026 poster adds the motorcycle special: twenty dollars per motorcycle, including two people, turning a rider and passenger into a single gate payment. Keep cash in mind for the auctions, raffles and 50/50 drawings too, since the fundraising elements run throughout the day.
Timing shapes the visit. The 2025 listing puts Saturday’s first music at one in the afternoon and lets Sunday run to half past six, so an afternoon arrival still catches full sets on either day. Because the 2026 Sunday was lost to rain with no replacement date set at the time of the post-event report, anyone travelling a distance may weigh the Saturday more heavily, since it is the day the record shows going ahead even in a wet year. Checking the charity’s latest poster or fundraising page before setting out is the sensible final step; a phone contact and the charity’s web address exist on the poster layers for that kind of confirmation, though their values are not reproduced here.
Once inside, pace the day around the printed band schedule, since sets alternate with auction lots and drawings. Riders arriving together should ask at the gate about the motorcycle special before paying individually. Westport’s other September events sit at different grounds, so a visitor combining trips should double-check which event a given listing actually describes.
A Sample Weekend Itinerary
A Saturday might begin with arrival at the Holy Ghost Grounds before the first set, leaving time to walk the grounds, note the auction items and find the food stalls. The afternoon belongs to the Saturday bands — in 2026 that meant Big Fish, Shot in the Dark, Paul Petit & Southside and Likk — with raffle tickets and 50/50 entries bought between sets. As the light fades, the live auction offers a last round of bidding before the day closes.
Sunday, when the weather allows it, suits a slower repeat: an afternoon arrival in time for the later sets, billed in 2026 as Louie Leeman & Friends, All Horn’d Up and Wild Nites, and a finish around the half past six mark the 2025 listing printed. Anyone whose trip depends on the Sunday should hold the plan loosely, because the most recent edition lost that day entirely to rain.
How It Compares With Other Westport Weekends
Westport’s calendar holds several gatherings that a quick search can blur together. The South Coast Harvest Festival shares the town but not the grounds: it runs at the Westport fairgrounds, a separate site from the Holy Ghost Grounds on Sodom Road. The Westport Fair is the town’s agricultural fair, built around farming traditions rather than a band schedule. The Holy Ghost Club’s own religious feasts share the very grounds with this festival, yet they are devotional celebrations run by the club, not charity music weekends. What sets the rock, rhythm and blues festival apart in that company is its purpose: its gate, auctions and drawings all feed a wish-granting charity and a single chosen child each year.
What to Bring
- Cash for the donation gate, raffle tickets, auction bids and 50/50 drawings
- A folding chair or blanket for settling in across an afternoon of sets
- Rain layers, since the 2026 Sunday was lost to wet weather
- Sun protection for open grounds in early September
- An appetite for festival food sold on site between bands
- A note of the printed band schedule so favourite acts are not missed
- Space in the car for anything won at the live auction
Beyond the Festival Grounds
A trip to the festival can stretch into a wider Westport stay. The town sits on the Farm Coast of Massachusetts, where the Westport River meets Buzzards Bay, and its beaches, farm stands and vineyard country draw visitors through the autumn. Fall River, the city the 2026 beneficiary calls home, lies a short drive north with its own mill-city history and waterfront. The record for this festival itself reaches no further than the grounds, the posters and the charity’s fundraising page, but the surrounding coast rewards anyone who lingers.
Why the Festival Matters
A charity concert is a common thing; one that has reached its thirty-first anniversary billing is rarer. The festival’s significance in Westport life lies in how it fuses a regional music scene to a single, concrete act of giving each year. The bands are not anonymous background entertainment — the same front names recur across the 2025 and 2026 bills in shifting combinations, like a community of musicians returning to play for a cause they know personally. The 2026 outcome underlines the point: rain cut the weekend in half, no replacement date had been set a week later, and the one surviving day still produced more than thirty thousand dollars, a figure printed as a rounded statement rather than an exact sum.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which charity benefits from the festival?
The event supports A Wish Come True, printed in fuller form as A Wish Come True, Inc., whose work is granting wishes for local children facing critical illnesses. A listings layer names the charity as the organiser, and the festival’s own fundraising layer says the event supports it, with one chosen child benefiting each year.
Why did the 2026 festival end after one day?
Rain. The thirty-first anniversary edition was printed for Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 September 2026, but a post-event layer dated 19 September 2026 reports that only the Saturday went ahead because of the weather, and that no rescheduled Sunday date had yet been set. The surviving day still raised more than thirty thousand dollars.
How does the motorcycle admission special work?
The 2026 poster prints a special of twenty dollars per motorcycle, including two people, so a rider and a passenger enter on one payment. The general admission printed in both the 2025 listing and the 2026 posters is twenty dollars per day as a donation, with children twelve and under free.
What happens between band sets?
The fundraising programme fills the gaps. Live auctions, raffles and 50/50 drawings are printed parts of the weekend, food is on sale, and the 2026 poster even carried a display grid of past festival T-shirt designs. The grounds stay busy while the stage turns over.
What to Expect From the Next Bristol Massachusetts Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival
How often is Bristol Massachusetts Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival held?
The documented pattern is one edition each year in early to mid September: the thirtieth anniversary edition ran across 6 and 7 September 2025, and the thirty-first followed on 12 and 13 September 2026. Anniversary billings in the thirties, printed on the posters, mark that yearly rhythm without stating any founding year.
When is the next Bristol Massachusetts Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival?
Nothing gathered for this article announces a date beyond the September 2026 weekend, so the next edition’s days remain unconfirmed here. The established pattern points to a September weekend, and the charity’s poster and fundraising material is where a fresh date will surface first; the post-event report from 2026 also left open whether its lost Sunday would ever be rescheduled.
Will the dates change?
They already have, in effect: the 2026 edition kept its printed Saturday but lost its Sunday to rain, with no replacement date set in the report that followed. A future edition could shift its weekend for weather or for the grounds’ calendar, so the printed poster closest to the event is the version worth trusting.
The Westport Rock, Rhythm & Blues Festival earns its place on the Bristol County calendar by doing two jobs at once: it gives regional bands a loyal September stage, and it turns that audience’s goodwill into a granted wish for one local child each year. Its record is made of posters, listings and the charity’s own fundraising words rather than headlines, yet it documents a durable, generous weekend.
