Cowboy Festival kicks off
The Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival is back this weekend for its 23rd year of wild west activities, musical performances and food venues.
A western town is created annually - now at the William S. Hart Regional Park - to draw in crowds of over 10,000 people who are die-hard cowboy fans, history buffs or people who happen to wander by and join in the festivities.
“It’s kind of like a Renaissance Faire with cowboy hats,” said Cowboy Festival Director Mike Fleming, stating many people dress up to attend.
What makes the cowboy festival so successful is that it is rooted in a cultural event, Fleming said. This includes the culture of the cowboy and the Native Americans as people can enjoy interacting with living history performers, panning for gold, and visiting a Native American lodge.
“You come to be entertained and enlightened,” he said.
The first cowboy festival was in 1994. It was scheduled to be held at Hart High School until the Northridge earthquake struck that year damaging major buildings at the campus, Fleming said.
It was moved to Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio in Newhall, which housed the festival for 21 years, he said.
The entertainment was strictly cowboy music and cowboy poetry, and it remains that way today, he said.
“It has a different feel from country,” Fleming said distinguishing the musical genres.
Smaller stages such as trick ropers, gun spinners and magicians followed along with activities for gold panning, steer roping and a barnyard zoo. Living history performers also became regulars at the festival.
Featured food at the festival was, and continues to be, savory BBQ, sweet treats and hearty food.
In 2014, the Melody Ranch location became busy with filming and Fleming said it was clear the cowboy festival could not remain at that site.
“You could either cancel it or you could choose to reinvent it,” he said.
The city chose to reinvent it. The William S. Hart Park in Old Town Newhall housed the event for the first time last year, and it was a success, Fleming said.
Hart Park allows everything to be spread out nicely, he said.
Even more activities have been added to the cowboy festival with the extra space. Mechanical bull riding and archery, for example.
The historical element of the festival has increased with the new location as well because the William S. Hart Mansion will be open for tours. William S. Hart was a silent film star who made western cowboy films, and was famous for making authentic films.
Entertainment has been expanded, too.
Sixteen performers of varying genres - Western swing, bluegrass, Americana, Western music, cowboy poetry and storytelling - will be highlighted on the four entertainment stages this year.
“It’s good family entertainment and the entertainment is always very high quality,” Fleming said.