Fairfax Grange ready to ramble at End of Summer Line Dance Fest

Get in line to send off summer at the Fairfax Grange. The storied local venue will celebrate this Saturday with an all-day End of Summer Line Dance Fest.

Although the site of many line dancing nights, this is the first line-dancing festival for the venue, according to John Harrer, who oversees operations at the Grange.

"What we're trying to do is broaden the line-dance community," Harrer said. "People who bought tickets in the first three weeks were all line dancers who had danced for many years. But we're also trying to encourage those who have maybe never experienced a full day of line dancing.

"There are lots of events like this in other cities and towns. The biggest one is a weeklong festival in Las Vegas, Vegas Dance Explosion. ... We wanted to kind of bring that to Bakersfield, and this is the first time in a number of years that we've had multiple line dancers in one location doing an all-day event."

Attendees can expect a full day of fun, learning and dancing with three of the best line dance groups in the area: Joel Hoffman from Bakersfield Line Dancing, Kailey Hansen and Jake Lopez from Line Dance Bako and Mary Pentangelo from Heart and Soul Line Dancing.

The day will be broken up into sessions with each group in charge of two hours of dance across the spacious 40-foot-by-50-foot maple wood floor.

Harrer said, "The instructors have told me that they're going to teach beginner and intermediate dances as part of their two hours, but most of it is going to be ... line dances and walk-throughs. So the instructors will walk through a dance just to make sure everybody knows that version of the dance, and then they'll play the song, and then they'll dance. Probably every half-hour or 45 minutes, someone will go, 'OK, here's a dance that I want to teach.' So then they'll teach that dance."

Pentangelo will start with a session from 10 a.m. to noon. From noon to 1 p.m., Hoffman will lead the dancing before a lunch break and free dance from 1 to 2 p.m., returning to take over from 2 to 3 p.m.

Hansen and Lopez will close out the festival with a session from 3 to 5 p.m.

Attendees can purchase snacks and soft drinks from the Grange or a meal from El Pollo Tapatio, which serves as the venue's resident food truck on weekends.

Opened in 1943, the Fairfax Grange was one of a number in Kern County, serving as a destination social club. It has continued to host dances and events over the years.

Like many venues, it had to get creative following the pandemic shutdown to draw people back. It has upgraded electrical and plumbing systems, traded its swamp coolers for an AC, and renovated its stage.

Along with monthly dances with the Bakersfield Smooth Dancers and Dancesteppers, the Grange has also hosted Rancho Round-Up shows with The Soda Crackers, which also recorded its debut single from the dance hall.

"You can't recreate over 80 years of history," Zane Adamo, the band's rhythm guitarist, lead vocalist and fiddler, said of the on-site recording. "It is one of the best-sounding rooms we've ever played in and you can feel the history when you perform on stage. I can't think of a better place for us to have recorded at."

The band returns Sept. 28 for the third Rancho Round-Up with dance instruction and both a matinee and evening performance.

Harrer said he and his fellow Grange members (which number about 40) are excited to

"The Grange is a very important part of the community. The venues in Bakersfield like the Blackboard (Cafe) and Trout's and Rockin Rodeo, those have all kind of fallen by the wayside. And I think it's really important that, if we have a chance to preserve a little part of Bakersfield history — the Grange has been there for 80 years — and if we can actually get it to be involved in the community, I think that that is a really important goal to have."

Doors open for the End of Summer Line Dance Fest at 9 a.m. Saturday at Fairfax Grange No. 570, 4 Fairfax Road.

Admission is $20 (plus fees) at Eventbrite.com. Proceeds go toward restoration and maintenance of the hall.