The final Liberty Antiques Festival at its Staley site will take place this week. Shown here are items that were on display during last September’s festival. (PJ Ward-Brown / Randolph Record)
STALEY — The final Liberty Antiques Festival at its longtime location will be held this week, but the event isn’t going away – just moving.
Founder Vito Sico is selling the operations after 3½ decades.
The event will be taken over by the owners of Windy Hill Farms, which has a 523-acre farm south of Ramseur. That will be the site for the festival in September.
“We knew it was time,” Sico said. “One of our primary goals was to find someone who would not only continue what we’ve built but also expand upon it, while keeping the festival rooted in Randolph County.”
Michael Moss is owner of Windy Hill Farms. Sico endorsed the Moss family as the ideal group to oversee the event moving forward.
“We are incredibly excited to see the festival’s future under their leadership,” said Sico, 80, who has run the event for 35 years.
This week’s festival, located at 2855 Pike Farm Road in Staley, begins at 8 a.m. Friday. It ends at 4 p.m. Saturday.
“Hopefully, it will go well for Vito and his crew this week,” Moss said.
Moss intends to keep the dates for the festival – the last Friday and Saturday in both April and September.
“Our family is deeply honored to preserve this remarkable legacy and will continue to focus on authentic, original antiques and collectibles as we strive to significantly grow the festival in the years to come,” Moss said.
Sico’s ownership group included his wife, Mary, and Janet Hall.
The Moss family learned about the festival’s impending change of ownership by accident, Moss said.
Windy Hill Farms is adding a wedding venue to its site. Moss’s son and daughter-in-law were shopping for furniture for that venue and overhead discussions about the festival winding down under the current ownership.
That led to a few phone calls and inquiries before it reached this point.
“We knew the festival was well-known for local folks and in the region,” Moss said. “It has a great reputation.”
Moss said his full-time job in Greensboro with Syngenta has involved putting on presentations throughout the country so he hopes that experience can translate to the festival. His interest in antiques is a bonus, he said.
The festival should be a good fit for Windy Hill Farms, Moss said.
“It sits really well with our farm and helps diversify it,” he said.
Members of the Moss family will be on site for this week’s event to learn more about the operations. They’ve set up a “meet and greet” with vendors.
“So they get to know us and so we get to see some faces to go with the names that we’ve seen or heard,” Moss said. “… The focus is to make this transition as easy as possible with those who’ve been so loyal.”
The new location beginning in September will be 15 miles away on Buffalo Ford Road in Ramseur.
But Moss said the festival will retain its name.
“There’s too much brand equity in the name,” he said.
