The official Fall 2026 playlist has dropped! First up, the YouTube version. Everyone has their own preferred platform, YouTube allows me to see how musicians perform on stage. If you submitted to Carolina Indie Fest as a musician you'd be asked to submit links to music on YouTube for just that reason. This is just one song by each artist, the intent is to give you an overview of the festival bands, you can always visit our bands page to to find links of where to listen to

Hailing from Lexington, Mississippi, Twurt Chamberlain is joining Carolina Indie Fest this Fall. Twurt is an exciting musician - his songs have a lot of energy and there's an urgency behind them. It's not just the lyrics, those alone would mark him as a soulful rebel, it's also his melodies and vocals that are attention grabbing. He's a musician who won't let you be distracted by his music. He's also the only musician to perform at Carolina Indie Fest who has a film titled

Re-Introducing … Oort Patrol - the sexiest temporally ambivalent punk rock band in most dimensions. Natives of Sanford and Cary, they are no strangers to Carolina Indie Fest having performed here a couple times including our second ever Indie Fest. When not overseeing the galactic and benevolent Oort Patrol Foundation (OPF) they are found pushing their band concept to the limits in new spaces including an animated music video and their video for The Search for SETI (which has

Get food, beverage, the official Indie Fest cup and the best seats in the house for the 9th Carolina Indie Fest on Friday, September 25 (5-10pm) & Saturday, September 26 (2:30-10pm). Seating is limited and buying online is recommended - click here to buy your tickets. VIP tickets are a badge you wear on the date(s) of the event and includes tickets for 3 beverages/day and a buffet spread from Tacos El Primo served at 6pm each evening. Covered VIP seating is located in the br

Indie Man will be hosting celebrity trivia at Hugger Mugger Brewing on Tuesday, September 15 at 7pm. This is a free event with teams of up to 6 people playing for the brewery to buy a portion of their beer tab. Indie Man will throw in some extra Carolina Indie Fest prizes as well. Expect three rounds of trivia with ten questions per round and a variety of challenge from very easy to head scratchingly tough. It's all in good fun. Celebrity trivia runs from September 8th to N

Every year we get asked the question - do you allow dogs at Carolina Indie Fest? The answer is, in the best tradition of improv, "yes, and ...". We have three businesses catering to dogs at Indie Fest this year. Hemp Nation is operating the Elevation Station at Indie Fest on both Friday and Saturday. They wanted everyone to know to bring your puppers by to get some CBD oil rubbed on those tired paws. We also have Bark Rebel joining us on Saturday, they are a vintage inspi

Ghosts of Liberty is a foothills, North Carolina based band consisting of husband & wife duo Emma Millard (Lead Vocals) Tyler Millard (Vocals, Guitar) and Tyler’s father Rich Millard (Keys). While described to me as Americana folk-rock I would locate the music of the Millards three squarely in a modern country music dynamic. I may find out differently when seeing them on stage, that does happen, but their music available online has the consistent themes family, naturalism an

Laser tag is back, baby! Let your inner '80s child run free (until they lose all their lives) at laser tag during Carolina Indie Fest. We've built a lit course under the parking deck attached to Hugger Mugger Brewing for play during afternoon and evening hours. There is a small fee ($5 for a half hour of play/player) and we will have half hour segments structured for all ages battle royale and slightly structured adult team play. Join us for an awesome time running around

Charlsee & Cam Gandee are an indie rock duo from the Kentuckiana region, giving them runnerup for the furthest distance traveled to Carolina Indie Fest this year. Their music is fun, vibrant and really breathtaking when Charlsee's strong, clean vocals take center stage. At first listen you'll be drawn into the vocals and may hazard a comparison to Grace Slick's iconic voice but Charlsee & Cam are clearly their own style. Their lyrics and storytelling are top notch & they se

Feeling peckish? Carolina Indie Fest always hosts a diverse selection of great food trucks for your gustatory pleasure. This year, thanks to the City of Sanford & DSI, we are able to park the food trucks on Steele Street adjacent to our vendors. You'll have lots of space to wander, peruse menus and take in all the sights and smells of these trucks: Tacos El Primo - the official caterer of Carolina Indie Fest as well as a proud sponsor, Tacos El Primo has served the Sanford

We have a record TWO festival beer sponsors at our Fall 2026 Carolina Indie Fest and we're celebrating by giving away FREE Carolina Indie Fest shirts each week to those who create the best label design for the beers. The contest is simple, stop by any of our sponsor locations: * Raven Forge Games (132 S. Steele Street); or, * Sanford Yoga (126 W Main Street - standing in as a location for Common Defense); or; * Hugger Mugger Brewing (229 Wicker Street) Pick up a printed label

Modern Moxie is an indie rock band out of Charlotte that tends, in my opinion, towards the "pop" side of rock. Their music is solidly rock but can be light and pop bubble gum-ish at times. Listeners to Modern Moxie can also treat themselves to a number of self produced music videos by the band. This is always one of my favorite things about indie music, I grew up in the era when MTV played music videos almost nonstop. It was new and fun back then and now, since it's not be

Do you love browsing books, talking about books, reading books ... just generally, books? Well we've got a treat for you at Carolina Indie Fest this year. Sanford area bookstore Sips & Sequels and travelling purveyor of books The Traveling Scroll are hosting an Open Air Book Fair at Indie Fest this Fall. In addition to the hundreds of book options we have several authors with us including paranormal & urban fantasy romance novelist B.L. Brown, fantasy romance author Cassie

This feels a bit like cheating because we've done this once before - Jesse James DeConto and The Pinkerton Raid were scheduled to play at Carolina Indie Fest in Fall 2025. Of course that Indie Fest was rained out, and the subsequent date in May 2026 didn't work for Jesse's schedule ... so here we go with a REintroduction of Jesse. There is no surface level description for Jesse's music, he is often going for weight and substance all the way down. Yes, there are some fine in

You may have noticed this Fall's poster artwork for Carolina Indie Fest features our beloved Indie Man character reprising a famous Harrison Ford role under the nom-de-plume Indiemana Bones. If you look closely you might see Indie Man has replaced the well known bullwhip for a microphone and cord. Artist Kelly Schrader worked with us on this one, this is her first Indie Man encounter but we are well acquainted her talents - she brought the artwork for our first annual renais

It's official - Carolina Indie Fest will return for the 9th time on September 25th & 26th. There's a lot that stays the same, like 10 bands playing on stage over two days, and there are some things that changed since our May 2026 Indie Fest. Here's a look at what's on tap at this Fall's Indie Fest: all vendors are now in the public parking lot at the corner of Steele and Cole Streets. The City of Sanford and Downtown Sanford Inc helped facilitate closing a small section of

Next week we will officially announce our Fall 2026 Carolina Indie Fest lineup but, before we do, some "thanks" are in order. We've operated this festival since 2022 and this Fall will be our 9th Carolina Indie Fest. Every year we've had some manner of assistance from the City of Sanford. Typically it's closure of the public parking lot at the corner of Cole and Steele streets, and that doesn't sound like much but there are a whole host of people who use that lot. The City

It's that time again! Vendors please apply NOW for spots at our Fall 2026 Carolina Indie Fest. Here's what you need to know: * click this link to apply to be a vendor * the dates are Sept 25th (5-10pm) and 26th (3-10pm) * starting this Fall all vendors will be located in the public parking area adjacent to our beer garden * we are now operated by a nonprofit which means your registration fee is a donation & no more service fees for credit card payment * vendor fees stay the s

Our 8th Carolina Indie Fest is in the books and, like its predecessors, it was amazing. The bands brought the high energy and good vibes to accompany great music & our guests always get high marks from the bands for being engaged and energetic. Dancing, yelling and screaming & singing along are all marks of a guest having a good time, and we enjoyed that in spades. Here are some moments from the event captured by Ben Brown Photography - he does a great job of helping me rel

After an amazing day one we are ready to do it all again! All the usual things apply - $1 fest cups, look at public parking options listed on the bottom of this page before hitting the road, bring a lawn chair and some sun cream. Some new things are afoot today - all new food trucks, bands, Ask a Booth peeps, and some new vendors including dirty sodas, flowers, bread and more. I've made a handy graphic to help you gauge whether you're taking it all in. Hugger Mugger Brewing