Ballyhoo is synonymous for art in Gulf Shores, and the call is open for a milestone year.

Applications are now open for the 10th-annual Ballyhoo Festival, which is set to convene on Lake Shelby in Gulf State Park March 2-3, 2024. This festival features 100 juried fine artists of all mediums with $5,000 in cash awards.

There will be food vendors, live cultural and painting demonstrations, children's art activities, a fiddle/banjo competition and lots of live music.

The Ballyhoo Festival features the only federally recognized Native American tribe in the state of Alabama, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. The Creek were the first settlers on the Alabama Gulf Coast before Europeans arrived. To honor this heritage, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians will be providing a educational historical background of their tribe and will be performing original tribal dance in ceremonial regalia.

The festival has also incorporated Early Americana Appalachian music into their cultural exchange in the form of a fiddle/banjo competition, sponsored in part by Flora Bama and the Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival. In 2024, $3,000 will be given in competition awards.

For more information about the Ballyhoo Festival and to sign up, visit www.ballyhoofestival.org, email ballyhoofestival@gmail.com, follow the Ballyhoo Festival on Facebook and Ballyhoo_Festival on Instagram, or call (251) 223-3970 or (251) 321-2182.