Stickerville Music Campsite

As part of the many music scholarships made available each year through the popular Fiddle Week campsite located behind Hooker and Slocum halls, Stickerville is sponsoring Swing Fiddle contestant and accompanist entries for the 70th Anniversary edition of the National Oldtime Fiddlers’ Contest and Festival.

“We want to encourage participation in the fiddle contest,” a founding member of the nonprofit Stickerville/Weiser Friends of the Fiddle, Becky Smith said 

Stickerville’s camping opens on June 15, where endless jamming will go on through to the end of the National Oldtime Fiddlers’ Contest and Festival, June 24.

Along with Paul Anastasio’s Western Swing camp, Smith said there are multiple Weiser Sessions Workshops planned for the week.

“This year we have 17 workshops,” she said.

“We will be using the museum’s auditorium, the Tea Room, third floor ballroom, and the big Event Tent in Stickerville.”

Then, there’s the crowd-pleasing annual Nancy Thowardson Western Swing Dance scheduled in the ballroom on Sunday, June 18, from 9 to 11:30 p.m.

Two bands will be featured at this year’s dance.

A Missoula, Montana-based band, Cash for Junkers is on the play-bill. The group’s steel guitar, mandolin, and guitar player John Rosett is a long-time Weiser attendee, and the rest of the band is joining him this year. Originating in 1998, the band performs original songs “inspired by early honky tonk and western swing colliding with post punk and Tom Waits.”

The Weiser Swing Band forms up annually during Fiddle Week. Led by Katie Glassman, Boulder, Colo., a six-time National Fiddle Contest champion and former member of The Western Flyers, she will be joined by Tony Marcus, Oakland, Calif., and Paul Anastasio, White Church, La. Others will be joining the band as they settle in for the festive week.

Some changes in this year’s scheduling for Stickerville campers include a move of Taco Tuesday to Wednesday, in order for the camping community to support the Swing Fiddle contest on Tuesday afternoon and evening.

Stickerville’s organizers say volunteers are needed and welcome around the campgrounds throughout the week for working in the office, the Goathead Cafe, at the Swing Dance, and on Taco Wednesday. 

From Weiser Signal-American – June 7, 2023