7 Can't-Miss Spring Music Festivals in Georgia

Georgia's largest musical arts event and one of the most distinctive cross-genre music festivals in the world, the Savannah Music Festival is a world-class celebration of musical arts. Find a true medley of melodies where music ranges from country to folk to jazz to chamber. Venues showcase the best of Savannah’s walkable vibrancy and include intimate churches, synagogues and club venues, breezy outdoor streets settings and revered cultural centers and historic theatre spaces, like the Johnny Mercer Theater. With a strength in classical music, Americana, acoustic and jazz — but also rock n’ roll, dance events and a variety of world music — the Savannah Music Festival is the tie that binds an immersive, global music experience to peak spring in an iconic Southern city.

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Due South, presented by Thomasville Center for the Arts, is an art, music, and food experience featuring artists and performers whose craft aligns with the raw, Americana feel the festival has cultivated since its debut in 2011. The event in downtown Thomasville celebrates a love for music and art in the town's ever-growing Creative District. This year's festival will feature headliner Reckless Kelly, as part of the band's Southeast Farewell Tour, as well as Few Miles South and Red Hoss Sucka's. Enjoy unique eats from food trucks, as well as local beer and wine as you soak up the soulful springtime vibe in this southwest Georgia town.

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Bear on the Square is as authentic as it gets. This Appalachian heritage festival and experience will play you some mountain music -- or you pick your own fiddle, bajo, dulcimore and more and join in on this annual town tradition. Dahlonega's historic public square is prime music territory for two full days, kicked off with pre-festival jam sessions on Friday as live music circulates all weekend. Spotlighting bluegrass and old-time music, Bear on the Square also includes a juried artist marketplace featuring traditional mountain crafts, storytelling, free music workshops and demonstrations, local wine and beer, dancing and more against a backdrop of mountain city springtime charm.

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With its annual dynamic blend of music, arts and local brew, plus a healthy dose of food, entertainment and respect for Mother Earth, the SweetWater 420 Fest is a revered annual tradition that celebrates springtime in the city. Located this year at SweetWater Brewing, the festival features three stages of music, unique styles of SweetWater beers, an artist market, food court and more. This is where beer, music and the spring season get the best of each other.

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Villa Rica is the birthplace of the Father of Gospel Music Thomas Dorsey, but before he wrote his best-known composition “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” he was also a revered blues pianist who accompanied Ma Rainey with his Wild Cats Jazz Band. So, while Villa Rica is worth a return visit for the annual Thomas Dorsey Birthplace Festival in June, consider the West Georgia Jazz Festival a perfect spring primer to the city’s festival season, where jazz, blues and gospel remain rooted. This rain-or-shine festival takes place at The MILL Amphitheater, and it features multiple acts during the day and an evening headliner. The event is free to attend, and reserved seating can be purchased.

The Lewis Family Homeplace in Lincolnton makes the perfect spring setting for the Little Roy and Lizzie Music Festival, a regional bluegrass experience featuring on-site camping and more bluegrass acts than you can shake a fiddlestick at. This rain-or-shine event has a big tent for inclement weather and has become a destination festival headlined by the talent of “Little Roy” Lincoln and Lizzy Long of the Little Roy and Lizzie Show. Little Roy has carried the Lincoln Family’s “First Family of Bluegrass Gospel” music tradition with him, recognized today as one of the foremost five-string banjo pickers in the country.

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It's one of the youngest, biggest, hippest music festivals in Atlanta, and with its cityscape landscape and stellar line-up of 60-plus acts, Shaky Knees is on solid ground in Georgia. Since its inception in 2013, Shaky Knees has featured a diverse lineup, ranging from world-renowned acts to up-and-coming artists. It’s more than a music festival but a full-throttle, three-day extravaganza with late-night shows and post-fest parties at local venues featuring more intimate sets from many of the festival's acts. With heavy-hitting headliners like The Killers, Muse and The Lumineers, Shaky Knees is a three-day take-over of a rock lover's dream.

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