A brand-new and all-ages tradition called Winter Warmer Festival will be held inside Bret Harte Hall at Roaring Camp Railroads on Saturday, Feb. 15, from 3-9:30pm.
The Felton venue, known for hosting such warm-weather events as the Redwood Mountain Faire, Santa Cruz Mountain Sol Festival and Brewgrass Festival, will now include this wintry affair in its annual lineup.
“The idea is to get everyone together during the shorter and colder winter days when we need to get out and shake it to a variety of live music, eat comfort food, explore local original art, drink local beer, wine and more,” said Andrew Myers, event co-founder and promoter.
Winter Warmer will include four genre-spanning musical acts, art and craft vendors, comfort food, local beer, wine, coffee/hot drink bar, kids’ area and more. It will feature beer from Shanty Shack Brewing in Santa Cruz, comfort food from Shockwave Foods in Felton and coffee/hot drinks from Cruise Coffee in Scotts Valley. Vendors whose wares support the Homeless Garden Project will have original artwork and craft items for sale.
Musicians Rory Lynch, Benjamin Andrews, Greg Loiacono and Forrest Day will be bringing their unique sounds to the inside stage. Andrews, a veteran of the acclaimed R&B/modern soul band Con Brio, said, “I’m thrilled to be playing the first Winter Warmer. It’s always been a blast playing with Con Brio at Roaring Camp and it’ll be exciting to come back and share my new music with what is always a very supportive and enthusiastic community.”
Myers has had this idea on the backburner for many years and is eager to see it come to fruition next weekend.
“I am an avid patron of all the summer festivals,” said Myers, who first pitched the idea to the Roaring Camp folks in 2018. “The idea was well-received but never materialized. Fast forward to early 2022 and out of the blue I get an email from operations with a few possible dates for early 2023. We settled on a date, and I went to work. I ran out of time and the numbers weren’t adding up due to the economies of scale, so I saved my notes and we agreed to give it another try. After the very harsh 2022-23 winter in the Santa Cruz Mountains, we landed on February 2025 for the event. None of this would be possible without the guidance of Roaring Camp operations.”
While the Winter Warmer Festival is heating up inside the Hall, Roaring Camp’s regularly scheduled Rainforest Weekends train rides will be available for purchase.
For festival tickets and more information, visit winterwarmer831.com.
