Bluegrass music enthusiasts had a banjo-pickin’, fiddlin’, foot-stompin’ good time Saturday.

During the day, about 500 people whooped, hollered, sang, clapped their hands or tapped their feet to music at the first Free State Music Festival at the Lawrence Holidome, 200 McDonald Drive.

Euphoria string band members, from left, Jim Krause, Bart Smith and Dick Powers, perform at the Free State Music Festival at the Lawrence Holidome. Not pictured during Friday's jam is Reva Nimz, also a member of the group.

Deanna Prater, one of the organizers, said about 300 people attended the Friday music shows and about 500 people were at the Saturday event. She said she knew some people traveled from Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Arkansas to listen to the performers.

“Several people were here for the whole weekend because they got hotel rooms here,” she said.

The two-day festival featured acts from the Kansas City area and across the nation, including the Midday Ramblers, The Wilders, Lost Highway, and the Alferd Packer Memorial Stringband.

The sounds of Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and old-time fiddle tunes were pure enjoyment for Pauline and Homer Herring, Union Star, Mo. They attended the event with a friend, Dorothy Prater, St. Joseph, Mo.

“We like bluegrass and country music,” Pauline Herring said. “We’re having a great time. We usually go country dancing Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.”

Bill Elmer, Hoyt, said he was pleased with the different kinds of bands the festival attracted. He said he has heard some of the groups at other festivals in the past.

“The music is the No. 1 reason I go, and seeing old friends,” he said. “They come from all over, so you get to see people you only see once a year.”

Deanna Prater said she was pleased with the attendance.

“The response has been great,” she said. “The feedback we’ve gotten has been very positive so far.”

Prater and her husband, Alan, who planned the event with another couple, Rose and Leo Eilts, filled a niche with their winter festival. Both Kansas City-area couples have organized other bluegrass festivals such as the Santa Fe Trails Bluegrass Festival in mid-May at the National Agricultural Hall of Fame, Bonner Springs.

“We all have other venues that we do,” Deanna Prater said. “We’ve been told there wasn’t any bluegrass event here, so we collaborated. Everything seems to go east and south, but not here, so we brought it to Lawrence.”

Next year, the organizers said they would like to have a few more vendors for the guitar show.