Locally based songwriter Mike Aiken and Smithfield Music are putting on an Americana music festival in Smithfield this October. This is actually the 5th annual Aiken and Friends Fest, featuring a performance on Friday, Oct 1 at the Smithfield Little Theater and two stages of music on the 2nd at Joyner Field. They’ve also started a series of Open Mic songwriters contests, with the winners of each event performing a short set during the festival. The first contest was this past Wednesday at Goody’s Pub in downtown Hampton. The winners were our good friends Jon and Anna Fuson. Congrats!

We were happy to see so many people show up to play, and even more happy that it was all original music. We heard that Goody was so impressed that they may start a monthly songwriter’s contest.

In the meantime, there several more dates available to secure a spot in the Fest: September 2 at Jalepenos in Smithfield, Thursday the 9th at Cozzy’s Comedy Club in Newport News, and Sunday the 12th at HK on the Bay, in Virginia Beach. Full details are available on this page.