The Story of CCF

May 28, 2022. After two years of our stage standing empty due to a worldwide pandemic, Carpenter’s Country Fest The first ticket holder walked through the gates at the North Franklin County fairgrounds. Why Memorial Day weekend many asked. It was the only weekend within three months that our founder and host Lance Carpenter could be in Arkansas due to his touring schedule.

In support of the Ozark Area Youth Organization OAYO and the Lance Carpenter scholarship, 18 artists performed Local food vendor Survivor Q  offered a variety of options, Arkansas Brewing provided adult beverages, a  pond to fish in and kids area with games and inflatables kept the young music fans occupied, artist merchandise and a silent auction with autographed sports, music, and pop culture memorabilia was on hand Miss Arkansas USA made an appearance and almost 450 people got to experience the true nature of music food and fun for the whole family that is Carpenters Country Fest.

Looking forward I hope we double in size in 2023. I hope we raise even more money for local charities like OAYO. I hope everybody who attended tells all their friends and family how much fun they had and if you were one of the ones that have not attended I hope you give us a chance and buy a ticket this year. Looking forward is exciting but we couldn’t look forward without looking back at how this all got started.

There was 2015 in Ozark native Lance Carpenter was on the lineup along with Carrie Underwood Zac Brown band the band perry Big & Rich and many more artists set to perform at Thunder On The Mountain. Two weeks before the event was to kick off Lance receives a call from the organization saying they are canceling the event. So much anticipation and preparation went into this event. My friends and family had taken off work, booked hotels, some renting RVs and traveled to Arkansas to see the show and its canceled. Now what? Thinking on his feet Lance made a call to byrds adventure center 5 miles down the road who already had two stages built to ask if they could be used to put on an event. The owner said we can’t use the stage is because of the big event on the mountain I told them you didn’t hear it from me but that event is canceled and I’m gonna try to put a small event on. They said there’s no way you can do an event in two weeks. Not possible. It takes months to plan an event. Well two weeks went by and Lance Carpenter hosted the first annual music on the Mulberry event which lasted three days featured 23 artists three national touring artists and in the process even lost 28 pounds almost making himself sick traveling back-and-forth from Nashville to Arkansas trying to get every I dotted every T crossed in order to make this event happen

In the end it was perfect no. Did everything run smooth no. We had a two hour rain delay we had some artists get sick and not attend we only have around 250 in attendance thousands of people upset that there would be no refund for their tickets and we’re afraid that we would be canceling our event as well. but all in all it was a perfectly good time for everyone who attended. I

I learned that your how important sponsors were in funding an event of that size in nature and when I was said and done I am vested nearly $30,000 of my own money to make it happen. For the next four years we returned to byrd’s adventure center. I can’t think Pam and her staff enough for being in the home with Music on the Mulberry for five years we had so many great memories so many great musical moments. Each grew slightly but never like we thought it should and each year the same complaints were made. Iit was too far from town the road was too windy there was no cell service and the list goes on.