Time is growing short, and I'm not packed yet.

In reverse order of happening - last first.

Official Festival Dates: September 12 – 16, 2007 (Wed thru Sun)
The official festival is when all the hired guns get there and put on their acts, and the hobby and craft people are set up to sell their stuff to pay the mortgages. A few music vendors bring their really high priced stuff – good place to look them over if you can look rich enough.

(Martin gets kinda testy if I try to touch anything, but the Ohme guys are all usually pretty much asleep. McSpadden is usually too crowded to get close to unless you flash a wad of money over the heads of the people in front of you – then they're pretty friendly about letting you do tryouts. Mel Bay usually has a large booth, sometimes with stuff that's not easily found elsewhere – including on their website.)

Landrush September 6, 2007 (approximately 07:00)
All campers must exit the campground and re-enter in lineup order as part of, or after, landrush to try to get their favored campsites and electrical and water hookups as needed. When you get to camp after landrush, you're "at the festival" even though it doesn't start for about a week.

Lineup 07:00 September 1, 2007
The WVA takes over the fairground and you're "allowed" to line up for the big Landrush. No permanent setup – it's just to get in line and wait, but the pickin' sort of gets started pretty regularly then.

Pre-Lineup: 07:00 am 23 August 2007
Unofficially, you can camp in the RV park for 14 consecutive days, if the grounds haven't been reserved by someone. At least one group that meets there has been "uncooperative in the extreme" and due to their likely presence, and the need to clean up flood effects, the fairground crew has very specifically requested NO EARLY ARRIVALS.

The county has stated, a little more specifically than in previous years, that no one who enters prior to 07:00 am, Thursday, 23 August 2007 will be "in line," but in a rare departure they have said (maybe inadvertently) that "order of entry after that time" will be tracked for purposes of the eventual lineup to get into the lineup to get in line.

See more to follow.

John