Festival News for Hawaii Island

June 23, 2017 • Addison Ching • Festivals and Conventions

The festival for Hawaii Island is now called Hawaii Steel Guitar Festival.

HIMELE festival organizers have re-evaluated the proposed steel guitar festivals on Hawaii Island and have decided to consolidate the festivals previously publicized as "Kona Steel Guitar Festival" and "Hilo Steel Guitar Festival" into a single, multiple-day event called the Hawaii Steel Guitar Festival. While the original festivals were planned as back-to-back single-day events on Hawaii Island, the combined festivals is now a 3-day event. The Kohala Coast festival's venue, the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows, expressed a desire to host a multiple-day event similar in format to the festival presented on Maui.

The Hawaii Steel Guitar Festival is scheduled for November 10-12, 2017, and will include two nightly ho'olaule'a pageants with many steel guitar artists who reside on Hawaii island. The program is still under development but so far featured steel guitarists Alan Akaka, Greg Sardinha, Bobby Ingano, Dwight Tokumoto, Pomai Brown, Dave Soreff, and Konabob Stoffer, have all agreed to participate.

The festival will also include Open Stage sessions, where steel guitarists can sign up for 30-minute public performance segments. Additional festival information as well as Open Stage sign-ups are available at the festival website.