For years, V. Dianne Pledger has spent the weeks leading up to each September's Bull Durham Blues Festival sweating the weather and worrying about rain -- or hurricanes. But this year will be different. After 22 years in the Durham Bulls' baseball stadiums, the Bull Durham Blues Festival is moving indoors to the Durham Performing Arts Center.

"We hope this will give us the opportunity to grow the festival into other performance spaces, restaurants, clubs and venues throughout the Triangle," says Pledger, the festival's executive producer.

The 23rd edition of the festival will feature blues-rock guitar great Buddy Guy as main headliner at a Sept. 11 show at DPAC. There will also be a smaller program on Sept. 10 at St. Joseph's Performance Hall at Hayti Heritage Center. More acts will be named later.

While this year's festival will be a strictly indoor affair, that may not be the case for future festivals.

"We hope to get back outdoors in 2011," Pledger says. "Something free where you can feel grass on your toes. Maybe at American Tobacco Amphitheatre. We'll see."

At least one festival regular will miss its old outdoor incarnation this year.

"I like the old ballpark, I've been going to the blues festival there since I was in college," says Tim Duffy, executive director of Hillsborough's Music Maker Relief Foundation. "But I like DPAC, too. I hope it works. It doesn't seem very funky, though, does it?"

Officially, Texas singer/pianist Marcia Ball is non-partisan -- she played both the Democratic and Republican conventions, after all. But ask which convention was a better party, and it's no contest.

"The Democrats, hands down," she said in a recent interview. "The Democrats really knew how to party, and there was quite a guest list at the thing we played: James Carville, Kathleen Sebelius, Harry Shearer. It was cool and fun and the music was amazing. I could hardly believe I was there. It was a little bit of heaven. By the Republican convention, it was less of a party. Plus Hurricane Gustav was bearing down, and some of the Louisiana people had to go back. It didn't seem to be as much of an event to the Republicans, totally under the radar. I don't know if we made an impression in Minneapolis at all."

But Ball will probably make an impression tonight in Durham, at the Bull Durham Blues Festival. Check here for more on that and a variety of weighty topics, including barbecue.

Two signature Durham events, the World Beer Festival and the Bull Durham Blues Festival, will be held this year at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park instead of the Durham Athletic Park, which is about to undergo major renovations.

The Bull Durham Blues Festival is slated for Sept. 18-20, and the World Beer Festival will take place Oct. 4.

The $6.3 million renovation to the DAP, the former home of the Durham Bulls, will begin in late July. The park should be ready for use as a training facility for Minor League Baseball by early next year, said Alan Delisle, the city's economic development director.

Daniel Bradford, organizer of the World Beer Festival, said he's thrilled about the opportunity to host the 12th annual event at what he described as a "spectacular facility."

Bradford said officials are taking pains to tread lightly on the DBAP's pristine field. In 2005, the DAP field suffered extensive damage after the World Beer Festival was held after heavy rains.

A field protectant called Terraplas is being used to avoid a repeat.

Delisle said the plan is for the World Beer and Bull Durham Blues festivals to move back to the DAP next year.

But Bradford's hoping the World Beer Festival won't be forced back.

"It’d be wonderful if we had a choice," he said.

If you wait until next week to get your tickets for the 21st annual Bull Durham Blues Festival, they'll cost you $35 per day. But you can save some coin during this week's pre-sale, which offers two tickets for $50. The pre-sale runs through Sunday; scope the details here. And the lineup goes like this:

Thursday, Sept. 18 (St. Joseph's Performance Hall) -- Scott Ainslie & Ernie Hawkins, M.S.G. Acoustic Trio

Friday, Sept. 19 (Durham Bulls Baseball Park) -- Marcia Ball, Rosie Ledet, Clarence Carter, Contagious Blues Band

Saturday, Sept. 20 (DBBP) -- Taj Mahal, Denise LaSalle, Bernard Allison, Big Road Blues