Shippensburg Corn Festival 2015

Today was the annual Shippensburg Corn Festival, and I requested the day off from work so I could do a photo shoot of the festivities. King Street is blocked off from Spring St. to Prince St. (much to the frustration of truckers, who tend to cut through downtown to get from I-81 to the PA Turnpike and vice versa) and is lined with craft and food booths. There are also three stages where musical acts perform, one right across the street from me in that little gazebo I keep taking pictures of.

As far as products offered in the booths, it gets a little more disappointing every year as the influx of people selling tourist-style junk made in China seems to increase. Still, there are plenty of real, down home handcrafted items for sale. I took a lot of pictures of the booths, but I'm only going to show a general representation here. Ditto on the musical acts, which ranged from Folk to Jazz to German Oompah to Caribbean; I took pictures of other acts, but in this post I'll just show you one, since it was right across the street at the end of my wandering time. If you want to see the rest, click here to see my Picasa album of the event. For now, fill your eyes with homespun color and take a walk down King St. with me!

King Street was packed even at 8:00 AM, when the festival opened

My favorite booth every year - handmade brooms. I still haven't bought one, though

Handmade seasonal wreaths and decorations

There was lots of handcrafted furniture

And of course there were all kinds of homemade food items

The handcrafted doll booth got lots of attention

And here's folksinger Jay Smar across the street at the gazebo, playing guitar and singing coal miner songs...

... and clog dancing while he fiddled and sang "Turkey in the Straw"...

... and played claw hammer style banjo...

... to a delighted and very attentive audience. 

After Jay Smar's concert I went across the street to home to process all the photos I took today. Please click here to visit my Picasa album of the event and see more crafts and musical acts. Enjoy!

© 2015 by A. Roy Hilbinger