“In like a lion and out like a lamb.” As long as it doesn’t rain or snow, the Cane Hill Kite Festival will go on.

Returning for its 24th year on March 8, the festival will fill the skies above Springfield Ranch in downtown Cane Hill with colors and characters of all kinds. The annual kite festival is organized by T.A. Sampson, a kite enthusiast and animal lover who opens up her land each year for the event. If rain or snow arrive, the festival moves to March 15.

Sampson says the first ever Cane Hill Kite Festival was on a “hypothermic Saturday” and was only intended to be a one-time thing.

“It was like 40 degrees, and I don’t know what it was with the wind chill factor,” she recalls. “But we actually had 50 people show up, and everybody had a great time.”

At the end of the day, people were coming up to her asking about the next one despite the chill in the air.

“It just grew from there.”

Before moving to Northwest Arkansas in 2000, Sampson lived in California and loved flying kites on the beach. She often traveled for work and says she always packed a kite in her luggage, hoping to find time to fly if the weather was right.

Once she relocated to Cane Hill, she couldn’t help but notice how windy it was as she walked her dogs around her 85 acres of land. She decided it was the perfect spot for a kite festival.

Since the first event, she says attendance has grown steadily from the 50 people at the inaugural festival to 969 in 2020. She says none of it would be possible without all of the wonderful sponsors and volunteers, some of whom have been with the festival since the beginning.

The festival is always on the first Saturday in March, originally to coordinate with the opening of the former Cane Hill BBQ. While picnics are welcome at the festival, a variety of nonprofits have catered the festival over the years, the longest being the Friends of Prairie Grove Pound and recently The Blind Hope Cat Sanctuary.

This year, Wilber Rufus Rescue Foundation will serve up food donated by Texas Roadhouse in Rogers. Proceeds from concessions will benefit the Friends of Prairie Grove Pound. An admitted “total animal lover,” Sampson washes laundry for the nonprofit and helps out during the low-cost spay and neuter kitty clinics.

The $1 fly fee for kids and $2 for adults covers the costs of the festival itself, she says. Military families and veterans fly for free.

Small, simple kites to big designer box kites will be available for sale in prices ranging from 50 cents to $18. People are welcome to bring their own too. Whether the kite was purchased on site or not, volunteers at the on-site Kite Hospital are there to help flyers assemble kites or to repair damaged ones.

“We call them PhDs — ‘pretty high-flying device specialists,’” says Sampson. “They just really work their butts off trying to get these kites together and flying.”

She says in the couple of instances where they couldn’t get a kite to fly, she just gave them another.

“We want people to be happy and to talk about the great day they had,” she adds. “We don’t want people being disgruntled!”

There will also be raffles on the hour from 1 to 3 p.m. — tickets are 50 cents, one ticket per person, and the winner must be present — along with fun guessing games for kids.

Sampson says her favorite part of the festival each year is the joy it brings to families. She says her guests are good stewards too.

“The day after the event, I do a grid search for lost and found items,” she says. “The amount of trash that I find wouldn’t even fill a pocket. … People are just so respectful of this venue.”

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FAQ

Cane Hill Kite Festival

WHEN — Noon until the last kite comes down March 8; inclement weather date is March 15

WHERE — Springfield Ranch in downtown Cane Hill

COST — Admission is free; flying costs $1-$2

INFO — facebook.com/p/Cane-Hill-Kite-Festival-100070731862691/