Matthew Oliphant, 11, of Chanute, performs with his father, Ron Oliphant, not pictured, during the State Fiddling and Picking Championships. The musical event was Sunday at South Park.

Lauren Poull, a Kansas University senior from Lawrence, and her father, Daniel Poull, of Lawrence, applaud a performance Sunday. Hundreds of people gathered in South Park for the annual music festival.

Sweet sounds from stringed instruments mixed with laughter and applause at South Park on Sunday afternoon.

The 27th annual Kansas Fiddling and Picking Championships drew hundreds of people to listen to musicians perform, compete and jam in the shade of trees.

Mary Kring, of Lawrence, joined a friend for the second half of Sunday’s events.

“My friend said she was coming, so I thought I’d join her,” she said. “They’ve been really good. We’re going to stay till the end.”

While there was a schedule to the competitions, dozens of musicians passed their time off the stage with impromptu performances.

It didn’t take much to get someone started. Put a chair in the shade of a tree and a guitar would suddenly come to life. Sometimes a chair wasn’t even needed; a bale of hay would do.

Matthew Oliphant sat under the shade of one large tree, picking at his banjo with an intense look on his face. The 11-year-old was about to compete and he needed to get the instrument in just the right tune.

“It’s fun. I know I can get a lot better,” Matthew said.

As he played “Foggy Mountain Special,” a crowd formed around him and his playing partner, his dad, Ron Oliphant.

“I’m his backup,” Ron Oliphant explained. “I’ve been picking all his life, so it just happened that my kids picked it up.”

Ron Oliphant said that with MTV banned on the family TV, his children, including a daughter who competed in the fiddle category, all took to playing.

Kring said that Matthew and his dad were the best performers she’d heard all day.

The competition wasn’t solely about music, though. Tables were set up for arts and crafts, while other vendors sold jewelry and T-shirts. Food was sold from booths along Massachusetts Street, which was closed to traffic for the day.

Steve Luper, a performer from Andover who’s been coming to the event since 2003, said he liked the challenge of performing. He won in 2004 but was disappointed with this year’s performance.

“You never get the song the way you want it,” he said. “Besides that, whenever you get on stage in front of a crowd, you have to get over the nerves. You could play perfectly in your basement, but put a microphone in front of you and it’s a whole other story.”