Begun as a tongue-in-cheek spoof of Spoleto, the cultural festival for performing arts in Charleston, South Carolina, Spittoono (or Spitoono, as it was spelled in alternating years) was founded by the Redneck Performing Arts Association (RPAA) a loosely organized group of locals at the ESSO Club, a gas station and grocery turned bar located on the Old Greenville Highway in Clemson.
Local bands play for free and no admission is charged to the grounds where the event takes place, the money coming from the sale of tee-shirts and of cold beverages.
More Opry than opera... Spittoono was held in the parking lot of the ESSO Club from 1981 to 1990 by which time it had outgrown the available space.
This fact, and a disagreement with the then-owner of the watering hole over the beer sales accounting, led to the music fest moving to the more accommodating space at the Guard Armory in 1991.
Due to declining patronage from both the more remote site, as well as the aging of a core group of attendees (plus bad luck with Mother Nature for two successive years), the RPAA is billing Spittoono XXXVII, held August 24-26, 2017, as the Grand Finale.