Bluegrass Underground 2012 is actually a series of concerts held underground in Cumberland Caverns. It uses the huge chamber called Volcano Room, where stage and stairs are erected. The events are broadcast on Bluegrass Underground TV and on the web.
For more info see their website or search YouTube.
At the moment there is an exhibition at the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (Museum of Natural History of Vienna), organized by the Cave and Karst Department. It is called Höhlen – Landschaften ohne Licht (Caves-Landscapes Without Light) and show the cave images of the most famous cave photographers. The exhibition shows stalactites and stalagmites, interactive installations, short presentatiosn of current research projects, an audiovisual room, an introduction into the drinking water system of Vienna, and an overview of the 28 show caves of Austria.
The exhibition was opened 29-SEP-2010 and will end in summer 2012.
In May a 3D photo exhibition with the name Underground of Enchantment will open at the Carlsbad Museum and Art Center. It shows 3d pictures of Lechuguilla Cave, located in the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Many of the photographs are from David De Roest, a Belgian photographer who specializes in 3D images. But there are also pictures of microbiologists working on discoveries from the cave as well as photographs from other caves.
Underground of Enchantment will open Saturday 07-MAY-2011, at the Carlsbad Museum and Art Center and will run through the summer. In autumn the exhibit will travel around New Mexico, Colorado and West Texas for 10 months. During summer 2012 the exhibit will be shown in the Visitor Center of Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
The Bluegrass Underground is a weekly radio-concert series by 650 WSM-AM, an American country radio station. The concert series is internationally acclaimed. Now they partnered with Loblolly Ventures, the company of concert promoter Todd Mayo, the tv station WCTE-DTV (PBS) and Emmy award-winning producer Todd Jarrell. They develop the concert series for national television distribution.
What makes this event interesting for us, is the location: Volcano Room at Cumberland Caverns.
More info: WCTE to bring ‘Bluegrass Underground’ to national television
Not long ago we made a page about a new cave in the U.S.A. which was developed as a show cave and promised to become a great cave. We added comments about the difficulties to book a tour during the first years. And now it celebrates its tenth anniversary.
We were impressed how long ago this cave was opened, and started to check how old showcaves.com is. We will post a blog entry about this soon.
However, our congratulations to Kartchner Cavern which seems to be not only an impressive cave, but also a successful example of nature awareness and careful cave management.
Oregon Cave will celebrate its 100th anniversary as a National Monument on 09-MAY-2009. Park guides will lead free cave tours all day.
For several decades the German cavers offer an international training camp for young cavers, called JuHöFoLa. The camp has been very popular among German and east European cavers. The first attended because of its good value (250 € for two weeks including meals and all materials and transportation), the latter for the possibility to escape the iron courtain for two weeks and the chance to find someone to marry. 
But like many traditional leisure activities caving has nowadays problems in finding interested youths. Most are pretty busy using their cell phone and working to pay the cell phone fee. And the eastern countries are now part of the EU and borders are open. So last time the camp was skipped the first time after 20 years because of too few applications, and this year the camp is much smaller. It is pretty sobering if you learn that many attendants were not really interested in the topic.
However, there is still the possibility to attend the camp. Some courses are booked but others still have vacancies. The camp is international, the only requirement is to understand English (or German of course) and if you are not of age a signature of your parents.
The geology course has still some vacancies. It will include an introduction into the geology of caves, of southern Germany and its escarpments, volcanism, the biggest meteor crater in Europe (25km in diameter) and fossils of the Mesozoic including some world famous fossil collecting opportunities. It will include a little practice in using maps and GPS, surveying, work with geologic compasses, preparation of fossils and work with cave sediments. There will be a little caving, but nothing difficult. Of course there are so called free days, where you may choose to visit a cave.
For more info look at the official website.
Ah, and by the way: I will be one of the course instructors for geology. 
This is an important event for show caves: show cave management and development is a main issue of nature conservation. Obviously, as the development of a show cave has great impact on the cave.
This conference is organized by the Nature Conservancy of the U.S.A.. It takes place at Crescent Hotel, Eureka Springs, Arkansas, this week. Attendants are from the U.S.A., Mexico, Dominican Republic, and China.
I guess cave news have to be dramatic, to be published by newspapers outside the speleologic scene. A fatalty helps. But I am astonished that during the last months various cave accidents were reported (there was a post on this blog in December…). This included the death of a woman, who visited the UNESCO WHL site St Paul Subterranean River and was killed by a rock falling from the cliff face of the cave entrance. There was the dramatic death of a whole spelunking tour group including guides, except for one British woman who climbed up a shaft. They were trapped by a flood caused by monsoon rains. Stupid to visit a river cave during monsoon.
But there was also the story about four Texan cavers who went to a bar and forgot to report back, so while they drank beer the cave rescue went into the cave to search for them. A small boy of the age of 8 rescued a calf from a cave, which was too narrow for adults. And four cavers were missing for a day and then found without a scratch, but exhausted and unable to climb out the entrance pit. The resue took a day. My general impression with all those news is: more caving news are published than in the last years. Probably there is a lack of other news?
As a caver I am not sure if I like this. There is always the possibility that spectacular rescues will cause a higher frequency of wild cave tours, because of the publicity. This causes more accidents and cave destruction. On the other hand the work of the cavers, including scientific work and cave conservation, works better if people already know a little about caves.
However, I decided not to publish any further post where I simply rewrite cave accident stories. If you are interested, I can warmly recommend the Norbert Casteret book, where he collected caving accidents from prehistoric days to the 1950s. A good read is also the U.S.A. Cave Acident Report, which was published with the last volume of the NSS News. Mine was stiched in upside down, but after I managed this it was a pleasant read.
The 8th National Caving Congress of the Philippines is held on March 31-April 6, 2008 in Cagayan de Oro City together with the Philippine Speleological Society Rescue Workshop. It is not really a show cave related event, but as cave tourism is important for the Phillipines it is organized by Speleo Mindanao, Inc., Conservation & Restoration Exercise, Inc. in partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Department of Tourism and the local government units of Cagayan de Oro, Manolo Fortich and Sumilao in Bukidnon.
The mayor of the city is rather enthusiastic about the event, as he hopes to develop the caves in the city and promote cave tourism. He is planning to develop the Calavera Cave and its surroundings, and the Macahambus, Monigue and Huluga caves. We will stay tuned about this future show caves…