The need for this project
While the Walnut Valley Festival has great stage shows and great contests, the same could be said of other festivals. Those who attend many festivals insist what makes Winfield different is the campground jamming. This is, to my knowledge, the first attempt to document that fact. It also provides an answer for those of us who are often asked, “Why would you go to a festival a week (or more) before the stages open?” Most of the visits on this site occurred before the stages opened.
The crescendo
At almost every stop, those jamming would say “You should come back on (insert day here) when (insert name here) gets here.” It is true that the jamming generally gets better as more players arrive. However, it is also impossible to be at all jams on the final Friday & Saturday night, esp. when that generally means missing four great performances on the main stages at the same time. Thus, what you hear on this site is just what was happening at the time of the visit… generally during the days between Land Rush and the opening of the stages.
Bandwidth & costs
The people making the music you hear on this site were doing it for the fun of it. Likewise, building this site has been fun for me, so it's offered on a non-commercial basis. To hear the sound samples, you need to download and install RealPlayer. You can then listen to the low or high bandwidth RealPlayer version. If you have a slow internet connection, you'll have to use the low bandwidth version. If you have a high-speed connection, but can't hear the difference, we'd appreciate it if you'd listen to the low bandwidth version. We're also providing an mp3 version. These are very large files, so please download them once, save them and then listen to your saved version to save us the bandwidth. My son, Tom Shorock, has generously donated this web space, but he is charged according to the bandwidth sent from the server. If you make extensive use of this site, I'd appreciate it if you'd send him a donation to help defray his expenses. If you have an account with PayPal, you can send his donation to thomas@shorock.com. If you don't want to use PayPal, e-mail me and I'll send you his current snail-mail address.
Your input
While every effort was made to ensure the accuracy of locations and the identification of photos and sounds, mistakes are bound to have occurred. If you spot any, please write to Don Shorock. Likewise, if you have any information to add (identifications of people, camp histories, etc.) about any of the stops on the tour, don't hesitate to volunteer that information. If yours is one of the camps not included in the tour, no offense is intended. I just didn't happen to hear any live music when I was in your part of the campground.
Your tour guide,
Don Shorock
) on the map below marks a “hot spot” which you can click to see and hear what was happening at that spot during my visit. The alphabetical & chronological listings below the map provide alternate text methods of navigating this site. Before you begin your tour of the campground, please read the author's comments.