Strawberry Music Festival celebrates music, bridges generations, encourages collaboration, and creates indispensable, unique experiences by fostering a diverse and inclusive community of music lovers, artists, families, and patrons.
The Strawberry Bluegrass Festival was first held Labor Day weekend in 1982, near the town of Strawberry, California.
Strawberry changed venues the next year in 1983, moving to Camp Mather, near Yosemite National Park. The first Spring Strawberry was added to the lineup in 1986. With that addition, Strawberry had both a Bluegrass Festival and a Spring Music Festival. The two festivals were eventually unified as the Strawberry Music Festivals in 1989. Camp Mather was home to Strawberry until 2013.
The catastrophic Rim Fire caused the cancellation of the Fall 2013 and Spring 2014 festivals and forced a venue change. Both the Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 festivals were held at the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley, California. For the next four years, the two festivals were held at different locations, with the Spring Festival remaining at Grass Valley and the Fall Festival moving to Westside, in the town of Tuolumne.
Coming out of the pandemic, Strawberry restarted the Spring Festivals in 2022, and brought back the Fall Festival for one year in 2025, both at the Nevada County Fairgrounds.
The Strawberry Music Festival is a gathering place that offers a peaceful, natural setting for music lovers and performers to share a collaborative, nurturing, and inclusive community experience. We love and help our neighbors. We are welcoming, encouraging, and supportive of each other and the performers who share their artistry and souls with us. We leave things better than we find them.
Through our long and winding history, one constant has remained — The Strawberry Way. Kindness, consideration, cooperation, collaboration, and inclusivity define our festival ethos. We are lucky to have a multi-generational community that not only carries the mantle of The Strawberry Way at the festival, but also strives to take our ethos out into the wider world.
Thank you, and credit to the Photography Crew: Kate Skogen, Dave Bonnot, Robin Frenette, Evan Thompson, Tim Konrad, Tim Van Raam
Office Staff
Kim Curbelo — General Manager
Steve Vanderpan — Operations Manager
Rachael Gabriel — Marketing Manager & Crew Coordinator
The Strawberry Office can be contacted at 209-984-8630 or info@strawberrymusic.com from Monday-Thursday, 10am-3pm. More details about the office can be found here.
