Germantown Festival

Germantown Festival is an awesome family-oriented event. There are hundreds of arts and crafts booths peddling everything from candles to jewelry to paintings. Children have a ball at the many rides and games, and my daughter loves to watch the dachshund race. That's right..can you just picture bunches of little weenie dogs racing around? So funny!Catch some live entertainment and fill up on classic fair foods (fried everything, of course). This year's festival is September 11-12, and admission is free. Mark your calendar now!

I grew up in this area and have been coming to this festival for as long as I can remember. It's a fun day to see arts and crafts from all areas of the country, eat some "fair food" and entertain the kids. It is most appropriate for smaller children ages 2-6 since they have smaller rides and activities. My older children no longer like to come. It's definitely a community event and a must do if you live in the area. It's big and it gets crowded so go early. They offer shuttle services from area church parking lots. This year's festival is September 11-12 and it's from 9:30-6:00 Saturday and 12-6 Sunday. It's a tradition with me and my mom, we try to go each year. They always have a vendor who sells outdoor flags and I pick up a new seasonal one. This year I'm looking for a Christmas flag, I know exactly where to find one, while eating a corn dog of course!

Okay, this festival is huge. I wasn't expecting the large array of quality booths that spanned across acres. I had a caricature drawn, I purchased soy candles, I drooled over turkey jerky, I eyeballed jars of honey, tested out pretty wooden wind chimes, and I watched a gymnastics performance.On top of that, I watched a ton of weiner dogs race each other, which may be one of the funniest things that I've witnessed to date.It was a lovely day, and I always look forward to the sno-cones and tight-knit community vibe. It's a lot of fun and good for kids, too.

I was a vendor this year. Great variety of vendors. Probably about 200 of us. Too much jewelry though (to my dismay). My biggest compliants are the traffic for this massive number of people (can't be helped), how early they expected vendors to be present compared to opening time and the dust. OMG, the dust! The park is well used and there was not much grass and so dust blew around everywhere. We vendors struggled to keep our items clean. Who wants to buy dirty earrings? lol But otherwise a gold mine of a fair for those looking for unique handmade gifts. A great family place. Lots of children's activities, ballon animals and face painting. They even had a weanie (dog) race. And yes you can bring your friendly dog to the park and everyone cooos at their cute little outfits! Next year I'll take a Benadryl and go as a shopper only!

Used to be absolutely wonderful. Now it is overfilled to the brim with packaged resale items, jewelry from China, chiropractors hacking their services, etc, etc. The few actual artisans that still purchase a booth are jammed between between retail items & service providers. I know two artists that closed up their booths after the first day out of disgust. One was a fine jewelry craftsman placed next to a woman selling packaged jewelry from China. They need to keep the artists separate from the resale merchants & give out maps. The air conditioned craft building has the same people with the same outdated unsold knitted or sewn items year after year. This could be used for local up and up & coming artists. If things continue as they are, the name should be changed or put someone else in charge with fresh eyes & more respect for the artists.