For local bluegrass fans, the Boxcar Pinion Bluegrass Festival’s timing is hard to beat.

During early spring, the days are cool; the nights are warm; and mosquitoes are blissfully absent, said organizer Cindy Pinion, who started the festival 18 years ago to honor her father after his death.

“We have a huge tent, so it doesn’t matter if it rains,” she said. “And after all these years, I’ve not seen anybody melt.”

The Boxcar Pinion kicked off yesterday at Raccoon Mountain Campgrounds and will continue through Saturday. Just over a dozen artists are slated to appear, including perennial award-winning acts like IIIrd Tyme Out and fiddling hot shot Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper.

These headliners join a list of past performers that includes Rhonda Vincent, The Nashville Bluegrass Band and Norman Blake.

“We have one of the finest bluegrass stage shows in the nation,” Pinion said, adding that equally talented pickers join the nightly picking circles. “If you know anything about bluegrass, you know there’s some of the best in the nation right here.”

Advance ticket sales are up this year, and as in previous years, many of these were sold to fans of far-flung locales like Canada and New Mexico, Pinion said.

About 3,000 visitors attend the festival each year, up from about 100 for the first festival in 1990. Like many festivals, the appeal is as much about revisiting old friendships as about the performances, Pinion said.

“It’s like you can leave the real world outside, and you go into this happy, little bluegrass world,” she said, laughing. “Your bluegrass fans, especially those who are eat up with it, recognize each other.

“Everyone’s on the same plane and there for the same thing, which is good bluegrass music and the camaraderie that comes along with that.”