Both before the festival and late each night this week, Stage V - an amateur stage in the Pecan Grove - will be a favorite attraction.
Sherry Brace, who runs the stage with husband Russell and a cadre of loyal volunteers, said everything about the stage is new this year. Art and Keith Charlet installed a longer truck bed to hold the stage and welded a steel frame to hold the top and sides. The whole thing is bigger and safer, Sherry said.
"Now you can stand up in the back with your upright bass and have clearance," she said. "It went up much easier."
Sign-up for groups interested in playing will be early in the day Wednesday. Exactly how early will depend on how late the Braces are up playing music the night before.
"We've been pacing ourselves. It was about 2 last night," she said. "On Wednesday, we'll bring (the sign-up sheet) out to the table and let them pick their spot."
Most of the schedule will be filled in with campers. Already this week a young mandolin player, an accordion player and a fiddler have performed.
Russell said he has some well-known acts pencilled in as well. Spontaneous Combustion will appear Thursday night and will be debuting new material. Live Bait the Band will play then as well. On Saturday, Still on the Hill, Barry "Bones" Patton and the Riverside Mandolin Quartet will play.
Maybe the most anticipated show will be the return of guitarist Beppe Gambetta to the stage for his regular Friday show. The Italian flatpicker spoke about the stage in a 1997 interview for Bluegrass Now magazine.
"When the main stage shows are finished, everyone who is really interested in music goes to this little place that has this incredible power," Gambetta said. "The first year I went to Winfield, and I played at Stage V with a thousand people in front of me, I had some of the maximum moments of intensity of my playing at this little stage."
Last year, Gambetta challenged Winfield veteran Dan Crary to play at the stage.
"It was kind of funny," Sherry said. "When he came up he was a little apprehensive."
"As things got going, he was relaxing," Russell said.
This year, there is a chance that Gambetta will bring a new face to the little after-hours stage.
"There's rumors running around that he's going to bring his son Felipe with him," Russell said.
To find Stage V, walk south into the Pecan Grove from Stage II. The stage's history can be read at website www.feist.com/~stage5/.