Nibroc Festival is back for its 70th year in Corbin

Seventy years! There are several of us that were here to attend the first Nibroc Festival 70 years ago. Personally, I have attended 65 of the 69.

Don Estep is publisher of the News Journal.

Those of us that were here for the first festival remember it well. The carnival was on the lot at the corner of Main and 7th Street where the building with the “Welcome to Corbin” sign is located.

The Nibroc Festival has gone through several phases. The first phase was mostly a hometown affair with local businesses and local citizens taking part. That lasted until businesses started leaving the downtown area with moves to the new Trademart Shopping Center.

I liked this phase of the festival. At that period of time it was more personal and on a smaller scale.

The carnival part of the festival moved from location to location. The most popular were the Wilson Street and Civic Center locations.

The next phase of the festival was trying to maintain its popularity with the downtown businesses gone. The festival no longer felt the same.

Enter the concert phase. It made the big difference. Under the direction of Bruce Carpenter, Nibroc became a huge festival with many thousands attending. This was because of the free concerts that featured big name recording artists.

In my memory the best festival ever was 20 years ago for its 50th anniversary when it first moved to Main Street. The weather that year was perfect. In addition to the large concert area, there were large tents at Nibroc Park and the empty lot across from Sanders Park that had continuous activity both day and night and featured some outstanding music groups.

That was the year that Corbin’s own Gary Edwards and local talent Carl Hurley performed on the concert stage.

After the festival was forced off Main Street it came close to becoming extinct. Because of Carpenter’s leadership the festival continued, but on a smaller scale.

In recent years it has been gaining momentum, though, and again is located on Main Street. But for it to equal the popularity of the concert years it would be difficult, if possible at all.

The concerts cost a lot of money and that kind of support would be needed. Volunteer help was abundant then. It would take that kind of enthusiasm again for it to be possible.

I would love to see the old concert days return as they used to be, but as it is Nibroc is still a good festival. The weather looks promising and there are some good free concerts lined up, plus many vendors and of course the carnival which is a large one.