In September of 1978, the first Mississippi Delta Blues Festival was more of a community gathering than a musical concert. It, along with the next nine Festivals, was held at Freedom Village, a rural community of less than 100 people which showed what was wrong with poverty and the programs designed to remedy poverty. Initially, the Festival was almost exclusively comprised of traditional blues people, playing acoustic instruments, (guitar, harmonica, and jug), on a flatbed trailer stage surrounded by the audience. While the Festival has grown in size, and certain aspects (staging, security, and management) have become more professional, it is still a community event, affordable to most residents and depending heavily on community volunteers