Tyler Childers And Chris Stapleton To Headline Healing Appalachia

04-21-2025

(The GreenRoom) The largest recovery-based music festival will bring two Kentucky natives together this fall, as Country Music Highway legacies Tyler Childers and Chris Stapleton headline the sixth annual Healing Appalachia, marking one of the first-ever true hometown shows for both artists. With the full line up to be revealed in the coming days, the festival will take place Friday and Saturday, Sept. 19-20, on a mountaintop near the Boyd County Fairgrounds in Ashland, Kentucky.

Childers announced his headlining slot to a sold-out crowd at the University of Kentucky's Kroger Field in Lexington this past weekend, making history as the second artist to ever sell out the stadium after Stapleton in 2022.

"Moving the festival to Eastern Kentucky and to the heart of The Country Music Highway, we could not be more excited or humbled to have two of the Commonwealth's greatest songwriters and voices for their people - Chris Stapleton and Tyler Childers," said Dave Lavender, board president for Hope in the Hills. "Not only have they both urgently and boldly shared their journeys and songs of home with the world, but both are first in line to roll up their sleeves and help folks in need. We can't wait to leave the porch light on for them here in the hills of home at Healing Appalachia."

Founded and hosted by Lawrence County, Kentucky native Childers and his team at WhizzbangBAM! (Booking and Management), Healing Appalachia is the flagship production of Hope in the Hills, a West Virginia-based nonprofit organization operated by an all-volunteer board of directors committed to combating the opioid crisis and supporting recovery across Appalachia.

After five good years in West Virginia, festival organizers looked to the hills for this year's site, for the first time deciding to settle along Kentucky's Country Music Highway that birthed not only Childers and Stapleton, but also Loretta Lynn, Tom T. Hall, The Judds, Dwight Yoakam, Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley and dozens of other influential artists.

"We are thrilled to host Healing Appalachia in Kentucky for 2025," said Andrew Steele, Executive Director of Boyd County Tourism. "We are beyond excited to show off the Country Music Highway with a few of our very own! The mission behind this festival is so important to our region, and we can't wait to help the event grow."

Held in September during National Recovery Month, Healing Appalachia spreads empathy, kindness and life-saving resources, honoring the more than 87,000 people in the U.S. who died of overdose in 2024, and joyously celebrating the over 20.9 million people in the U.S. recovering from alcohol and/or substance use disorder.

Since the inaugural Healing Appalachia in 2018, the fest has grown from a small concert for 1,500 fans at the West Virginia State Fairgrounds, to 20,000 music lovers representing 42 states and three countries, flocking to hear national acts like Gov't Mule, My Morning Jacket, Shooter Jennings, Sierra Ferrell, Lost Dog Street Band, 49 Winchester, Charles Wesley Godwin, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, Galactic, Trey Anastasio, Margo Price, Sierra Hull, and many more at the family-friendly festival. This annual gathering of kindred spirits has promoted an economic impact of more than $5 million in rural communities.

"Moving Healing Appalachia to Kentucky is special for a lot of reasons. It exemplifies the growth of something that started as an idea on how we could create change in a world that we were watching destroy our friends and families first hand," said Ian Thornton, founder of WhizzbangBAM! "Watching it start at home in WV with 1500 people, to becoming the movement that it is today and being able to start travelling through Appalachia, it's an honor to have Tyler and Chris headline this inaugural trip across the Big Sandy as a couple of local boys who did it right."

The grassroots built and run festival is fueled by local groups and businesses, teaming up with regional veteran, community, and youth organizations to assist the cause, even enlisting local school bands to park cars, clean the grounds, and lead a march to kick off the fest. Concertgoers also witness recovery in action, staffed by nearly 500 local recovery volunteers working all posts, from security, green team, hospitality and even help building stages, sharing their inspirational, personal journeys of recovery between musical acts.

This community spirit has enabled Hope in the Hills to distribute more than $1 million to boots-on-the-ground nonprofits offering life-saving prevention, recovery, and wellness programming across Appalachia and beyond since 2018. All proceeds are funneled into inspiring programs of change, including everything from yoga in women's prisons, mentoring for teen girls in foster care, and outdoors-based camps for trauma-impacted kids, to music therapy and festival outreach nationwide, harm reduction, recovery houses, and innovative reentry and recovery-to-work initiatives.

Healing Appalachia is also proactive in Naloxone education and training, hosting the world's largest one-time training event in 2023 with over 20,000 people participating in a stage training by world-renowned opioid expert, first responder, and one of TIME's Most Influential People, Jan Radar. Last year, Healing Appalachia teamed up with END Overdose to distribute more than 20,000 doses of free Naloxone at their fest, and were a major sponsor of SAVE A LIFE DAY East, aiding in the distribution of 84,000 doses of Naloxone across the Eastern U.S.

Fans can grab early bird tickets HERE.