Special Edition Festival to be Held

November 5, 2019 • Addison Ching • Festivals and Conventions

A Special Edition of the Hawai‘i Island Steel Guitar Festival will be held in February, 2020. The festival will be held on February 7-9, 2020, to help the hotel celebrate its reopening and completion of its $100+ million hotel renovation project that began in October, 2018. The 2019 festival, rescheduled for mid-December 2019, was canceled because the hotel was not ready for occupancy.

The 3-day festival will follow the format of the Hawai‘i Island Steel Guitar Festival originally planned for December, including school visitations, evening kanikapila, open stage, workshops, and a full steel guitar program on Friday night. The resort's monthly Twilight at Kalahuipua‘a series, conducted by the resort's Kahu Hanai, Danny Akaka, Jr. will be a part of Saturday evening's program and will feature "talk story" by Kahu Akaka and steel guitar entertainment.

Eva Parker Woods Cottage

Scheduling of the festival is made possible through collaborative efforts of HIMELE (the event's producer,) the Mauna Lani, and the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority.

The special festival will not impact the scheduling of the annual Hawai‘i Island Steel Guitar Festival. The 4^th annual festival is tentatively scheduled for December 11-13, 2020, at the Mauna Lani.

For additional information, see the festival website.