ABSFest is a multi-day Burlesque & Sideshow festival held in Asheville, NC. The event offers performance, networking, vending and workshops for both the public and artists. 

ABSFest hires national and international headliners to lead the festival each year, and selects other acts from the pool of Performer Applications.  We believe in paying artists and educating audiences. We strive to unite many Vaudeville Revival Arts under one marquee, allowing performers to connect, collaborate and inspire. The festival has showcased both legends and locals in a huge array of variety arts: burlesque and bellydancers, aerialists, juggling, unicycling, puppeteers, musicians and singers, hoop, pole and flow artists, whip arts, a skilled circus dog and on one amazing occasion, a charismatic bowling pig. 

We are firmly committed to the uplifting power of education, and the workshops are priced for accessibility. Teaching artists get 70% of class profits, and all performers are encouraged to attend a class: support the artists, learn something new, and help create a culture of professionalism, constructive critique and valued information-sharing. 

Scholarships ARE available; email Madame Onça at futureoftradition@gmail.com, stating need and specific interest. In addition, we offer a FREE class or panel every year on a subject of interest or relevance to the community.

Visit the Apply section on the website to fill out the relevant application. 

To VEND: provide the required information and our Vendor Coordinator will contact you to follow up.

To PERFORM: provide the required information, send your press-ready pictures, and where applicable pay the application fee. We weigh all the applications with a mind to creating the most balanced programming possible. Consider bringing your most polished pieces to share. There are no more than 15 spots in the festival this year, so bring us your strongest, most developed piece: preference is given to under-represented groups such as POC, transfolk, etcetera. If your act is accepted and you choose to confirm, please be prepared to submit your music and tech specs promptly!

All festival applicants receive a free show ticket!

Accepted acts get paid a minimum stipend of $100 for the weekend. 
Housing with the artists is provided as needed!
Teachers keep 70% of workshop revenues.

Every year we strive to pay more people, because it takes a village to build this incredible festival.

We offer one comp per accepted act to their show.

As a courtesy, we will steward a limited amount of your merch at the big Saturday show. Provide the Vendor Coordinator with your merch, inventory sheet, and QR codes. If you want to make a bigger impression with your wares, you will want to rent a table. Talk to us, we can help.

Yes! We run our own one-view camera and an independent contractor does the editing. Videos are $50 each, or your raw files can be shared with you at no charge using DropBox or similar.

ABSFest honors one person per year onstage with an Artist Recognition Award for valiant work in the arts. In 2011, the award was renamed the Phil Slomski Artist Recognition Award, in memory of that fine artist and human. The award itself is an Art Artifact, a traveling icon - the lavish top hat gets passed every year from the previous winner to the newly-chosen artist. Each in turn adds their own special flair to it. After 15 years, the original hat became amazingly heavy and ornate, and so it has been retired from service, to spend the rest of its years reclining on a velvet pillow. Award-winner and Cosplay genius May Hemmer constructed a NEW award, which launched in 2025.