There are plenty of different festivals strewn across Central Illinois ranging from spring, fall, summer, and winter events. This guide will inform you on any festival or big event in the radius of an hour within Bloomington-Normal.
Spring Festivals
- In May there is a festival dedicated to music and it is called Summer Camp. It is nationally known for the famous bands being there such as Umphrey's McGee, Moe, and a bunch more. They have musician workshops and activist workshops. You can buy a three day camping pass for the whole festival if you would like. If you want to see some of the bigger bands at night time then you need to bring seperate money to pay those bands. It is usually the last days of may in Chillicothe's Three Sister's park. http://summercampfestival.com/ -Use this website to check out what music will be going on there and how much tickets are. Buy them quickly before they get too costly.
- In May there is a couple of days in the little town of Heyworth where there will be a carnival dedicated to the upcoming summer encouraging people to get out of their houses to go out and have some fun. There are also a lot of garage sales, community church services, and plenty of food. Often there is live music to accompany all the exciting rides and delicious food they have there. Whether you are a kid who wants to go ride all of the fair rides or someone who just wants to get a funnel cake and listen to some music, it will be a good time for all ages. HeyDays is the name of the festival. There is no set date for which it happens each year but it is decided by the HeyDays town council each year.
Summer Festivals
- In July there is a festival called the Sugar Creek and Arts festival. It takes place in uptown Normal and goes on from July 9th to the 10th. People come from all over the country to set up shop and sell their crafts that they have made. Over 170 arts and crafts vendors usually show up. Along with the art and crafts they offer they always have live music to go with it. There is usually a stage set up for various artists from country bands to jazz bands. When you are listening to music you can walk over and grab yourself a corn dog or a funnel cake because they always have little fair food stands set up and chairs and tables so you can sit, listen to the music and eat some food.
http://www.normal.org/Uptown/SugarCreekArts.asp -Here is the website you can go to.
-The Sweet Corn Blues Festival is held in uptown Normal on August 28th and 29th. They have over 50,000 ears of corn ready to go along with lots of flea market vendors and people setting up crafts tables. Come eat some corn and celebrate what we grow in Illinois and greet the college kids that are coming back to town for schooling.
Fall Festivals
- In September there is a festival located in Clinton Illinois called the The Pork and Apple Festival dedicated to celebrating the harvest season. There is plenty to do at this festival for all ages. There are pony rides and face painting for the little kids. For the adults they have antique shops and lots of crafts being brought in home made. There are some three hundred vendors. If you aren't into the whole old fashion antique, homemade crafts scene, then you should go for the food. They have lots of dishes including pork like ribs and sandwiches. Also candied apples and all sorts of goods made with apples are there too. usually kettle corn is quite popular as well.
http://www.chmoorehomestead.org/apple-pork.htm -Here is the website of the place the Pork and Apple Festival takes place at in Clinton.
- In September there is a festival called the Taste of Country fair located in Lexington Illinois. They have a parade, a car show, tons of flea markets, and lots of different foods including walking tacos, river rat potatoes, and corn dogs. They also have art shows with lots of local vendors trying to sell their wares. People come from all over and it has drawn around 30,000 people in the past.
- The Art & Balloon Festival is located in Lincoln. There are over 40 booths of home made crafts that you can browse and buy from along with wine tasting for the adults and even observe all of the hot air balloons in the skies. They have live music and this year they have a couple of wrestling matches that you can watch. A rock climbing wall will be put up for all of the kids and lots more. It's happening August 27- 28 all over the downtown area.
- Leroy's Fall Fest takes place in Leroy(who would have guessed....) When you are at the festival you can go ride all of the carnival rides they set up and eat lots of the fair food they have set up. They also get live bands to play along the 5 day festival. They get people to sign up for a 5k run and you can sponsor someone to run and that money goes towards sports programs at the local highschool.
- In Morton there is a festival dedicated to pumpkins. The Pumpkin Festival is held September 14- 17 in downtown Morton. Over 80% of the world's canned pumpkin comes from this town. It is one of the biggest in central Illinois Drawing around 70,000 people from all over. The festival contains a parade, plenty of bands and live entertainment, craft shows, and carnival rides. There is lots to do and lots of food to eat. They make everything can make out of pumpkins. They make pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin fudge, pumpkin donuts. Even some bizarre foods like pumpkin chili. If you get tired of the pumpkin foods they also have regular food there like porkchops, brats and hot dogs. Come celebrate the canning season and eat some delicious food!
Winter Festivals
- The Central Illinois Jazz Festival is located in Decatur. They take big bands from all over the country and just get together and play. Tickets are generally always twenty dollars. This isn't necessarily a winter festival but lots of bands play in the winter anyway. These bands all play at the Decatur club. Food is almost always available at these shows also.
