Hey all you fest-goers!
The festival t-shirts always sell out early on the day of the fest. Are you a Cheat Fest t-shirt collector?
Secure your pre-sale shirt today, they’re sure to go quickly!
The artwork is by John Victor, a long-time Friend of the Cheat.
Pre-ordered t-shirts will be available for pick-up at the pavilion on the day of the festival. If you cannot pick up pre-ordered merchandise at the festival, please call Friends of the Cheat at 304-329-3621 to arrange for shipping
Volunteering at Cheat Fest is a much different experience than simply attending. As a volunteer you complete a four hour shift in exchange for free on-site overnight camping, free food and beer all day from the hospitality cafè, free festival entry, an invitation to the Friday night VIP party (where there is more free beer and wine), and an inside look at the inner-workings of Cheat Fest.
There are lots of volunteer positions to choose from. Some examples are compost guardian or silent auction attendant. There are also opportunities for you to step up and be a lead volunteer. Lead volunteers make sure that the Down River Race, 5K, Hospitality Cafè, vendor program, stage management, silent auction, and other important parts of the fest go smoothly.
Volunteers make Cheat Fest a successful fundraiser for Friends of the Cheat. Without you it would be far too expensive to make Cheat Fest a lucrative fundraiser. Won’t you help us make this special event a success?
Act soon! Volunteer positions fill up quickly.
To volunteer at Cheat Fest please contact Kelli Geswein at Kelligeswein@hotmail.com or 724-632-6591.
If you are interested in being a Lead Volunteer, please contact Ellie Bell, Festival Coordinator, at cheatfest@cheat.org.
Cheat Fest is on the way! So with overwhelming excitement, I present to you the 22nd annual Cheat River Festival artwork!
Preorder t-shirts will be available at cheatfest.org on Monday, March 21.
The artist is John Victor, a long time Friend of the Cheat. He reflects his love for the Cheat River in the designs for these t-shirts that have become a collector’s item. We are forever grateful to John for sharing his talent. The fest t-shirts and cups bearing his work consistently sell out.
Cheat Fest is all about celebrating and supporting recreational opportunity, ecological health, and rich culture in the Cheat River watershed. You can see each of these represented in the fest art.
Check out the fest art from the last 6 years below…
How many of these shirts do you have?
Click on the ticket below to claim your presale Cheat Fest ticket!
♥ Eat and mingle at the VIP Party on Friday night ♥ Stay overnight on Friday and Saturday on the Fest site for free ♥ Access the Volunteer Café with spreads of food donated by local establishments and kegs of West Virginia brewed beer ♥ Mingle backstage with the musicians and the community of volunteers, both of which are the heart of the Fest ♥
Mail checks and contact info to 119 South Price St. Suite 206 Kingwood, WV 26537 or click here to purchase tickets online.
Presale tickets for the 22nd annual Cheat River Festival are available now!
Three reasons to purchase your Cheat Fest 2016 tickets early:
Have you always looked longingly at the Hospitality Café backstage where Cheat Fest VIPs eat yummy food and drink kegs of locally brewed beer? Do you wish you could camp at Cheat Fest? These are perks that come with VIP tickets. Major Donors get 2 VIP tickets. You can get more information about becoming a major donor here.
What a festival. With perfect weather, perfect water, a full moon & the best crowd imaginable, it was another amazing Cheat Fest.
After months of planning, it was incredible to see so many friends of the Cheat come together to make the festival a reality. This celebration is truly the product of one big river family, and I want to thank everyone who had a hand in making Cheat Fest such a special event – which is hard, because that is a lot of hands!
There is the team of people who work for months to coordinate their own corners of the festival, the volunteers who return year after year to prepare the grounds and work shifts throughout the entire event, the musicians who donate their performances and keep the beat alive all day long, the vendors, non-profits & artists who come to share their passion &work with our guests, and the friendliest & happiest crowd in the world. I have never met a friendlier crowd.
I met countless people throughout the weekend who shared that it was their 10th, 17th, or even 21st Cheat Festival and I felt so proud to have had the opportunity to be a part of such a special tradition. Thank you, everyone, for the wonderful weekend. We’ll see you next year!
And – thank you to Eric Lee for helping us relive the festival from a bird’s eye view with his spectacular drone footage. Eric is a contributor to Cheat Canyon Adventures, an online adventure blog that highlights outdoor recreation in the Cheat River Canyon area.
Photography contributed by Donnie Riggs
A big shout out and thank you to Eric Lee and Cheat Canyon Adventures for capturing this year’s Down River Race using a drone! Check out the resulting video and article below. Click Here for Original Article by Cheat Canyon Adventures
Every year whitewater aficionados from around the area descend on Albright, WV to participate in one of the largest downriver races in the country. The Cheat River “Massacre-ence” is a Friday evening prelude to the Chest River Festival that same weekend.
The downriver race provides opportunities for fans and whitewater enthusiasts to watch scores of paddlers shotgun though the starting point under an abandoned railroad trestle on Cheat River. The race starts near the Laurel Highlands River Tours launching point – about a mile below Albright, WV. It’s fun to watch the mass start here, but you can also get good views of paddlers from the adjacent Cheat Canyon Campground or Cheat Fest fair grounds.
With last year’s public acquisition the Cheat Canyon Wildlife Management Area, there’s no shortage of good spots for spectators to hike into the Canyon and watch racers plunge through their favorite rapids like Big Nasty, High Falls, and the Coliseum. Access the Cheat Canyon WMA by turning off WV Rt 26 onto Beech Run Rd close to the Cheat River Festival fair grounds. Travel approximately one quarter mile to the Cheat Canyon WMA sign and parking area on your left. If you enter the Canyon here, then you can follow the Allegheny Trail along the river for great photo opportunities during the race. Adam Webster captured some of the video here by hiking through the canyon on this trail.
This year’s race turned-out nearly 150 participants, and wouldn’t be possible without dozens of volunteers led by three veteran organizers: Kevin Ryan with the Friends of Cheat, Rick Gusic with Thompson & Gusic Insurance, and Barry Adams with American Whitewater. Other major sponsors include Rocky Mountain Kayak, Cheat River Outfitters, Wilderness Voyageurs, and Laurel Highlands River Tours. …and don’t forget – the Friends of Cheat whitewater access fund has been instrumental in maintaining access points at the finish line for paddlers year round.
Race winners and awards were announced later that evening at the Wilderness Voyageurs Outfitter Building in Albright, where the Morgantown Brewing Company provided food and drinks. Join the crowd of spectators at the next Cheat River “Massacre-ance” and start your Cheat Fest weekend by watching paddlers at the at the mass start, or hike into the canyon and find your favorite spot downriver.
A Message from long time frined of the Cheat, Jim Snyder
Well- the Fest site is pulling itself together. It’s been mowed, the dumpster is here and yesterday I spent most of the day enjoying the cool breezes and steady sunshine of a typical Preston County day while stringing up the lights. Gives you a lust for life! Lots of cool mellow folks stopped by to see how things are going,- Mike Petticord brought some ice by, Rick Chaney asked if I needed any help, Amanda came to check on things. I wish I could just take a nap at the site- so peaceful. Oh wait! This is the calm before the storm! The energy will just crank up from here.
The roof over the stage goes up today. Soon, Chip Mefford will show up and answer our electrical questions and fix a hundred other small last minute issues. We’ll laugh a lot and solve some of the world’s problems by pontificating and musing and quipping. Maybe he’ll tell some stories about his good olde daze as a roadie. Or tell heroic stories about his Surly cargo bike.
There’s so much entertainment to be had at Fest time. And it just shows up. The river is at an incredible level and is so clean. The race will be perfect- ideal conditions.
And I’m not going to even mention the weather they are calling for (brilliant!!) because I won’t jinx it. Although I’m sure a segment of the crowd will be disappointed if it doesn’t rain….
So- for all you Festy types- there’s a flurry of readiness paving the way for your party. And I love the focus of it all. Making the Cheat a better river. A river with real “Friends”!
Get your Cheat Fest fix early! Black Bear Burritos is partnering with Friends of The Cheat this Thursday to host a warm up party called the Cheat Fest Soundcheck. Head over to the Downtown location on Pleasant Street to join in on the festivities.
The evening will feature live music with The Josh Daniel/Mark Schimick Project, great food and drink, raffle prizes and a whole lot more. You’ll also have the opportunity to grab your festival tickets or buy the new festival t-shirt. And, if you purchase a FOC Klean Kanteen Steel Pint Cup, you will get your choice of one $1 fill of select Big Timber or North End Tavern hand crafted brew.
Black Bear worked hard to get a great spread of raffle prizes, and all proceeds will be donated to FOC! Winners will be drawn and announced that evening. Prizes include:
As if that weren’t enough, $5 from every sale of the Thursday Dinner Special will also be donated to Friends of the Cheat. So come chow down on “the Porking Authority” and you know you’ll be eating for a good cause!
“The Porking Authority”
Feed your porking meter with this meal as your choice of a giant nacho or flour wrapped burrito: Pulled pablano pork that was dry roasted in a house spice rub and tossed with a mildly spicy pablano pepper sauce. We “ticket” this with crunchy lettuce, fresh tomato, homemade pickled jalapenos, red pepper queso, diced red onion and a dollop of sour cream. (burrito version served with chips). Meal cost is $12 with $5 of each special ordered going to FOC.
Hope to see you there!
Cheat Fest is less than 1 week away, and things are kicking into high gear. Check out some of the ways Cheat Festarians are getting ready for festival weekend!
The river is up and the sun is out – there is potentially no better way to get your mind right for Cheat Fest than by getting on the water, especially if your planning to test your stuff against some of the speediest paddlers around.
Local paddler, Bily Brown has been training long and hard for the highly prestigious Cheat Canyon Down River Race, which is set to take off this Friday evening before the festival. This unique training style, dubbed the “Flight of the Phonenix” by paddling legend Jim Snyder, has proven to be transformative for those athletes committed to its rigorous and unorthodox methodology.
Love to compete but paddling isn’t your bag of beans? Join the many Cheat Festarians who wake up bright and not-that early Festival morning to run the Cheat Fest 5K. If the joy of trotting around for 3.1 miles isn’t enough to convince you, do it for the awards! Local artist Gail Anderson (Cheat Fest Art Market Coordinator) is at it once again making her highly prized hand made Medallions, stained with an iron oxide glaze made from Acid Mine Drainage.
Curious as to what keeps me, this year’s Festival Director, up at night? Nightmares about compost-recycling-trash cross contamination!! Do not judge. In an effort to sleep better, and reduce confusion from cans conspiculously labeled “TRASH RECYCLING”, we’ve been at it repainting & labeling all of the waste bins. How many paddlers does it take to decide which colors scheme will produce the best results come festival day? Exactly: 3. That said, do a girl a favor and take a second look before you throw your half-eaten hot dog in the plastic bottle bin.
Lydia Darrow, master paint mixer works along side Bily, who is once again practicing yet another strangely effective kayak racing technique.
Wondering who made that Thrillseaker you saw cruising class V the other day? It was probably Chris Jenkins. In addition to being the best inflatable maker this (and that) side of the Mississippi, it turns out he is also a wiz at doing everything else. Thanks Chris for processing the online pre-orders, fixing all of the walkie-talkies, walking up and down the FOC stairs 300 times with loads of Cheat Fest supplies, and always being available for a post-work narrows paddle.
Well, that’s what we’re up to. I hope YOU are ready for yet another fantastic festival weekend on the Cheat River. If you haven’t yet gotten your tickets, hop to it! Today is your last chance to save $5 on Cheat Fest Tickets and to pre-order your festival t-shirt. Click here to get your’s online now, or visit one of our satellite ticket sales locations below!
Tickets will continue to be on sale at these satellite businesses while supplies last!
Back Bear Burritos | Downtown Morgantown
Black Bear Burritos | Evansdale Campus, Morgantown
Morgantown Brewing Company | Morgantown
Little Sandy’s Truck Stop | Bruceton Mills
Waterstreet Cafe | Friendsville
Friends of the Cheat | Kingwood
Foxfire Cafe | Kingwood
Tickets are $20 at the gate; Kid’s under 12 enter for free!
Please note: tickets purchased online will be redeemable at the festival gates via will-call, listed by the purchaser’s name.