We have tried to make the festival affordable to families who might like to come for the weekend. We have expanded our camping spaces because some people like to stay right on site. We have not increased our prices.

We've learned a lot during the years. The weather this time of year is always unpredictable. One weekend will be real pretty and then festival weekend it can rain and turnout will be down. Overall we have been lucky with the weather. People have really supported us.

This is by far the toughest weekend so far this year. We have some other tough weekends coming up, but as far as two teams in the same weekend, this is probably our biggest test.

That's definitely something we hope works in our favor. But it's going to be a tough weekend. Five of the top eight seeds (including No. 1 West Jefferson and No. 3 Grandview) are coming here. I guess the good thing is that if a kid can make it through here he's got a pretty good shot at going all the way to the state tournament.

You would think by now everybody in the area would know about the festival but I run into people sometimes even in the neighborhood who aren't aware of it and yet we have people who come from almost all of the surrounding counties and even out of state.

We've had church and civic groups, like the Lion's Club, that have found the festival helpful either as a fund raiser or for public service to the community. Several churches have given away free cold water at the festival as an outreach effort.