Dan Rozman

May 21 -24 2026 by Dan Rozman It rained from Thursday morning pretty much straight through Monday. The Allegany County Fairgrounds in Cumberland turned into a legitimate mud situation, the kind where you start making footwear decisions you’d never normally make. Temperatures dropped into the 40s at night. People wore rain gear over their rain gear. And still. Eighteen years in, DelFest has built up enough goodwill and institutional love that fans just kind of absorb the discomfort and keep going.

Nationals Park sets aside one night a year for a Grateful Dead themed pregame concert, and once again this year the special promotional tickets sold out. Andrew Weiss and Friends have headlined it four straight years, and at this point it’s become one of the more anticipated nights on the summer calendar. Weiss sat down with District Fray between sound check and showtime, relaxed and easy to talk to, like someone who has done this enough times to stop being nervous about it.

Once you have been to DelFest, it is easy to understand why Del picked the location. In Cumberland, Maryland. Tucked into a valley where the Appalachian ridges crowd in close and the Potomac runs alongside town, it’s the kind of place that surprises people the first time they see it. Every Memorial Day weekend, the Allegany County Fairgrounds fills up with campers, music fans, and a whole lot of people who drove or flew a long way.