A Guide to Charleston’s March Festivals

Spring has officially sprung in the South. March kicks off Charleston’s high season, when the city is warm, blooming, and full of activity. Throughout the month, the city hosts festivals spotlighting its food, history, culture, and design. Here are some of our favorite festivals bringing forth the best of Charleston— and how to navigate them like a local. 

Charleston Wine + Food Festival

March 4-8
In recent years, Charleston has become an epicurean hotspot, owing to its buzzy, chef-focused restaurants, premium local ingredients, strong culinary heritage, and people who love a good night out. Now in its second decade, the Charleston Wine + Food Festival celebrates the best of Charleston’s dining and drinking scene. The highlight is inarguably the Culinary Village (March 7), which features unlimited bites and sips by some of the region’s finest; Jamie Barnes of Charlotte, Kiawah’s Colin Creighton, and Sameeka Jenkins, a Lowcountry native and Gullah-Geechee chef are just a few names among many. The setup at The Citadel’s Johnson Hagood Stadium includes tasting stations, each of them named after a city neighborhood. There’s also interactive chef demos, live music, and even a silent disco.

Did you know? Lowcountry cuisine is a confluence of influences, reflecting the people that have made their mark on the region. Its West African roots can be seen in dishes like Red Rice, an ancestor of jollof made with crushed tomatoes in lieu of water; Frogmore Stew, a corn-sausage-potato-seafood boil whose technique harkens back to traditional one-pot cooking methods; and the Benne wafer, a thin cookie that enslaved peoples would prepare from the sesame they grew in their own small plots on plantations.

March 18 – April 11
Since 1947, The Historic Charleston Foundation has hosted this annual festival celebrating Charleston’s cultural history. Formerly called the Festival of Houses and Gardens, the festival features a range of house and garden tours, lectures, and more cultural programming celebrating the city’s rich design history. Discover the best hidden gems with walking tours of iconic streets like Tradd Street (March 25 & 29), where you’ll find some of the city’s oldest homes, and Church Street (April 8 & 11), whose Georgian gardens, Colonial houses, and namesake churches have earned it the reputation of America’s most romantic street. To see the city at its most opulent, opt for the walking tour of the South Battery (March 18 & 21), a melange of 19th- and early 20th-century Colonial Revival mansions overlooking the harbor. Meanwhile, those with a green thumb will appreciate the festival’s Beyond the Garden Gates series (March 20 & 27, April 3 & 10), which takes visitors through parterre home gardens and teaches all about the flora, fauna, and property design while giving plenty of time to amble. Think iron gates, brick pathways, towering ancient oaks, antique benches and birdbaths, and lush blooms in these tucked-away oases. 

Did you know? Early spring is the best time to see Charleston’s signature azaleas in bloom, turning the Lowcountry into a vibrant canvas of pinks and purples. The plant, a native of India, was brought to the area by European settlers in the mid-1800s, who saw the city’s rich soil and subtropical climate as the perfect opportunity to harvest new species. 

As for more specific themed walking tours, one of our favorites is the Foundation’s Charleston Catastrophes tour (March 24 & April 2,9), which takes visitors through the landmarks of the city's turbulent past, from tornadoes to fires to war battles and everything in between. 

Did you know? Charleston has survived a handful of catastrophes— a testament to the city’s resilience. Major events in the city’s history include the Great Fire of 1861, which destroyed over 100 acres throughout the city including many of its famous churches, and the Siege of Charleston, a major victory for the British in the Revolutionary War. But the most colorful catastrophe remains the Mermaid Riot, when, in the wake of a devastating storm, hundreds of patrons rioted an apothecary that hosted a “mermaid” in a tank to draw in customers, many of whom had been enticed by local Gullah root doctors and healers. The patrons not only believed the sight of the faux tail was a real mermaid, but insisted the storm wouldn’t stop until she was freed. The building collapsed during the riot, and many claimed to have seen the mermaid being swept out to sea; legend has it the storm let up within minutes. 

The festival will also host The Plantation Singers (March 26 & April 9), one of the most popular a capella groups in the Lowcountry and beyond, who, since 1996, have been drawing from Gullah rituals and traditional songs for their performances. This time, they’ll be singing at the historic First Baptist Church— the oldest Baptist church in the South.

March 20-21, Woodlands Nature Reserve
The music doesn’t stop there, though. Though bluegrass music has its roots in Appalachia, it’s been embraced down South, where music is part of the way of life. The annual Charleston Bluegrass Festival (March 20-21) is held at the Woodlands Nature Reserve, a 6000-acre reserve about a half-hour outside Charleston with vast forests of Live Oaks, a cypress swamp, eleven lakes, and countless trails for hiking and biking. Festival-goers are invited to camp out under the stars, visit local food and craft vendors, and kayak or paddle between sets by bluegrass bands like the Creekers and Kyle Tuttle Allstars. All ages are welcome. 

Did you know? The first official bluegrass festival dates back to 1965, when North Carolinian Carlton Haney organized a weekend-long lineup of musicians to play on a horse farm in Fincastle, Virginia. In the years since, bluegrass festivals— with their dusty campsites, friendly fire pits, and communal singalongs— have become a summertime staple for music-loving Americans across the nation.

March 20-22 (Festival Hall)
Now in its fifth year, the Charleston Show is heaven for antique collectors, design aficionados, art lovers, and the like. The collection, which features state-of-the-art antiques from 32 exhibitors across America and Europe, is an eclectic mix of mid-century furniture, folk art, 19th century maps and illustrations, Delft pottery, heirloom silver, and more, and it’s open to the public throughout the weekend. Thursday evening’s Preview Party gala (March 19), which benefits the Drayton Hall Preservation Trust, will offer a first look at the collection.

Did you know? From the late 17th century through the Antebellum era, Charleston was one of America’s wealthiest cities, which made it a hotspot for all things luxury. Its active port helped import goods from Europe, from fine jewelry to furniture. Today, you can find remnants of those opulent eras in the city’s many antique stores along King Street, including George C. Birlant & Co., one of the oldest antiques establishments in the South. Croghan’s Jewel Box, meanwhile, is a mecca for silver jewelry and homeware, a holdover from a time when silver was the ultimate status symbol.