Saturday, October 18, 2025 Kala Koa Entertainment celebrates 17 years of bringing the biggest and brightest names in Hawaiian music to the Seattle Slack Key Festival, taking fans on a Hawaiian musical journey showcasing GRAMMY-winning and Na Hoku Hanohano (Hawaiian Grammy) award-winning Hawaiian kiho’alu guitarists, along with vocal and hula performances. Slack Key guitar is a Hawaiian fingerstyle guitar technique that originated in the 19th century when European sailors and Latin American cattlemen brought guitars to Hawaii which the Hawaiians then adapted to their traditional songs, developing a plethora of open major key tunings by "slacking" the strings (the term "slack key" comes from the Hawaiian phrase kī hōʻalu, which means "loosen the [tuning] key"). The resulting lush, resonant, open sound is instantly identifiable as Hawaiian and guaranteed to transport the listener back to the islands.
