Rockbridge Area Health Center announced last week that the annual Bull & Oyster Festival has been permanently canceled.
For 19 years, the beloved tradition has served as the largest fundraiser for the health center and kicked off the spring season with barbecue, bluegrass – and of course, lots of oysters.
RAHC announced the news to sponsors and donors in a letter and email last week.
“After much consideration, we have decided that the Bull & Oyster Fest has reached the end of its remarkable run,” the RAHC statement said. “It had become much more than a fundraising event, it became a community tradition. Your generosity and partnership helped make that possible, and we are deeply grateful.”
The news came as a surprise, even to sponsors. In a Facebook post as recent as April 5, RAHC said, “We are already looking forward to seeing you under the tent next year.”
RAHC chief executive officer Suzanne Sheridan said in the letter to sponsors that the health center has since decided to find other ways to fundraise.
“While it is difficult to say goodbye to an event that has meant so much to RAHC and our community, we believe this is the right time to turn our attention toward new ways of connecting our supporters more directly with the programs, people and patients at the heart of our mission,” Sheridan wrote.
The News-Gazette was unable to reach Sheridan for further comment over the past week.
The Bull & Oyster festival debuted at Lime Kiln Theater in 2007, then moved to the grounds of RAHC for a few years. By the time the festival moved to Devils Backbone in 2014, what had started as a relatively small, hyper-local fundraiser had grown to more than 450 attendees. The event moved to the Virginia Horse Center in 2017 and attendance continued to surge.
At last year’s event, the crowd was estimated to be around 700 people. Sheridan told The News-Gazette earlier this year that the festival has sold out every year since 2022 after returning from a forced two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gary Ruley, a local musician, told the News-Gazette that he’s performed at Bull & Oyster Fest with his band, Mule Train, nearly as long as he can remember. He’s been a staple at the festival from its time at Lime Kiln to the festival’s move to a large tent atop the big hill at the Virginia Horse Center.
Ruley said what sticks out to him the most over the years is how much the event had grown.
“I mean, it’s a huge function,” Ruley said. “You’d be hard-pressed to find anything bigger (in Rockbridge County). I know people who’d come from far and wide, Indiana, Baltimore, Georgia. I mean all over. People came a long way to go to the festival for good reasons.”
Ruley said putting on any event of that magnitude is a massive undertaking and requires a lot of hard work for everyone involved. But, he said, it was worth it to see how much people of all ages enjoyed it.
“It was a smorgasbord of all kinds of people. Little kids, young people, old people,” Ruley said. “A whole dissection of the population was there from grandma right down to the 2-year-old, getting out there and dancing. It was just a good party.”
Ruley didn’t know firsthand what went into the decision to cancel and found out around the same time as everyone else who had been involved over the years.
Sheryl Wagner said she was in shock to hear the news. Wagner is the director of Rockbridge Area Tourism, which was a longtime festival sponsor. She also personally volunteered at the event for years.
“I’m really sorry to see it go,” Wagner said. “I think it’s a much-loved tradition and I think it brings people together and supports the work of the health center.”
Wagner said that as far as local tourism is concerned, the Bull & Oyster Fest likely brought in some day-trippers, but the festival really belonged to county residents.
“It was primarily a community event,” Wagner said. “But that’s what we need to bring our community together.”
It’s unclear how much money the festival generated for Rockbridge Area Health Center over the years.
According to RAHC, which is designated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community health center, all proceeds benefited the health center’s mission to provide comprehensive, affordable care to residents in Rockbridge County and surrounding areas regardless of income and to support comprehensive community healthcare.
In 2025, RAHC provided $1.1 million in charitable care, board member Bill Craig told The News-Gazette at the time. According to Craig, funds raised from the Bull & Oyster Fest go to “sustain vital programs like our school-based health centers and mobile dental and medical clinics.”
Craig said that while ticket sales to the Bull & Oyster Fest contributed to donations to RAHC, most of the proceeds came from sponsors. The festival’s website offered tiered sponsorship packages up to $10,000.
Officials with RAHC have not said how they plan to make up the proceeds from their largest fundraising event in the coming years.
For now, RAHC said in last week’s letter, the organization will host a farewell reception to the festival for donors and sponsors, A Toast to a Healthy Community, on Oct. 15 at Great Valley Farm Brewery.
Officials described the event as “an informal evening with fellow supporters, hear from RAHC program leaders about the work happening throughout our community, and raise a glass to nineteen wonderful years.”
“Before we close this chapter, we want to celebrate it — and, most importantly, to celebrate you,” the invitation read.
The Bull & Oyster Fest is the second loss of a major festival in the Rockbridge area to be announced this month. The Nothin’ Fancy Bluegrass Festival, which has brought huge crowds of bluegrass lovers and big-name musicians to Glen Maury Park in Buena Vista since 2001, announced it will not return next year, moving instead to Luray.
