Jauma Farm’s annual two-day get-together is happening this weekend, and though it may have a larger music lineup, more stallholders and a later end time, founders Sophie and James Erskine promise the same community- and family-oriented atmosphere.

First, the unfortunate news.

JaumaFest, which in its inaugural year was built around two days of cherry-picking at the Adelaide Hills cherry farm, will not have cherries ripe enough to pick this year.

“This cold season has kept cherry ripening at bay,” James Erskine, who runs the farm with his wife Sophie, told us over text.

The good news: James says JaumaFest ticketholders will get free entry to the site once the cherries ripen, in early January.

The even better news: JaumaFest is still on this weekend.

On 17 and 18 December, Sophie and James are opening the gates to Jauma Farm for a community coming together, this time offering a bigger musical lineup, a broader range of market stallholders and a later end time.

“We’re trying to do what we know worked from last year,” Sophie says.

“We’ve extended the markets and we’re going to change the layout a little bit to be a bit more spaced out. Generally, I think the layout will be more or less the same.”

Both days will open at midday with a yoga session from local practitioner Prue Klausener, and a welcome to Country will be performed by Dave Booth and Kyle Sampson Booth at 4:40pm on Saturday and 5:05pm on Sunday.

On Saturday, the rostered artists are Banjo Jackson, Lucinda Grace, Didier Kumalo, an immersive performance from Constantine Stefanou and Lily Potger presented by MUD, Lazaro Numa, Sjado and Ajak Kwai.

Sunday will see Elena Dakota Zezemeh, Bree Tranter, Magic Steam Train, Workhorse, L-Dopa, OIL!, Sidwho?, Max Savage and the False Idols and Skorpion King take the stage.

Sophie worked alongside Banjo Jackson (who also works for Jauma Wines) to program the lineup, and they’re excited to bring over JamaFest’s first interstate artist, Ajak Kwai, from Melbourne for the event.

The food and drink offering has changed slightly. Forage Supply Co will be in attendance, as they were last year, but there’ll be a new Adelaide Hills-based pizza supplier and an ice cream vendor.

Keeping things very local, the beer will come from Uraidla Brewery, while New South Wales-based Wildflower, known for their sour beers, will also have an offering at the festival.

There will, of course, be wine from Jauma on pour, with Sophie saying there’ll be some fresh releases available.

“We’ve had our spring release come up just this month, and so we’ll have all of the new wines on offer,” she says. James and I have also created a few new wine labels this year, with a few different cuvées, which are really exciting.

“A sauvignon blanc and an orange wine as well, which is an arneis variety, they’ll be on offer. We’ll probably have six or seven wines to choose from, and they’ll all be new release.”

A Jauma lineup

Although JaumaFest is slightly scaled up in its second year, Sophie is adamant it won’t lose any of its community-oriented feel.

“We’ve definitely never wanted to make it a huge, 1000-pax kind of event,” she says.

“We want it to stay small so we can still interact with people and have that nice, cosy community vibe. That’s really important to us. Being like it is, it’s a grassroots festival and I don’t think it feels good if it goes too crowded.”

It’s also important to Sophie that JaumaFest remains family-friendly.

“One of our biggest focusses is that we want people to know that they can bring their kids, they can bring a picnic as well,” she says.

“We’re letting people bring their own food. We want people to be able to come and stay for the day – so whether they get food from food trucks or bring their own, that’s absolutely fine. Hopefully that means bigger families can come.”

The sign of another successful event, to Sophie, will be seeing the crowd up and dancing, as they were last year.

“There was really no rush and no feeling of rush or crowdedness or hecticness in any way. It was very relaxed,” she says.

“I think people really loved sitting under the trees, eating cherries, getting the food, getting the wine, and then towards the end of the day a lot of people up dancing.

“I feel like everyone had this feeling of very light-hearted, childlike enjoyment, which is underlying everything that we do.”

For more information on the event as it’s released, follow along on Instagram. Tickets are currently available via Eventbrite.