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10th Annual Bernard Blues & BBQ

September 12–13, 2026

Festival hours: 9AM to 4PM both days

Ten years of smoke, steel guitar, and Saturday afternoons on the hill.

For a decade, folks have come up the drive to St. Bernard Abbey the second weekend of September — for the barbecue, for the blues, for the artisans, and for a stretch of Alabama that doesn't look like anywhere else. This is our tenth year. We're going bigger than we ever have.

Music from open to close. The stage doesn't go quiet. From the moment the gates open Saturday morning to the last note Sunday afternoon, live blues is rolling across the Abbey grounds — more acts, more hours, more music than any Bernard Blues & BBQ before it.
More food than we've ever put on this hill. More pitmasters working more smokers. More Southern plates, more sweets, more cold drinks, more reasons to come hungry and stay all afternoon. Whatever you came for, it's out there this year.
New: the Student Art Gallery. For the first time, our feeder schools are bringing their young artists to the festival. Student work from across the region will be on display all weekend — paintings, drawings, and pieces made by the kids who'll fill these classrooms next. Come see what they've made. It may be the best thing you look at all day.
More for the kids. We've added more to do for the youngest guests this year — more hands-on activities and more room to run. Bring the whole family. Children 12 and under get in free.
A few surprises. We're not telling. Ten years earns a little mystery — you'll have to come out and see for yourself.
$11,000 in cash prizes. Our sweepstakes returns with more than $11,000 in total giveaways, drawn over the weekend.
Where it all happens. St. Bernard Abbey is Alabama's only Benedictine abbey — stone-cut architecture, quiet walking grounds, and home to both St. Bernard Preparatory School and the Ave Maria Grotto. It's the kind of place you'd want to spend a September weekend even if nothing were going on. Something is.