Packed with hundreds of food fairs, concerts, street sales, and movie screenings, summer is the best time of the year for attending festivals across the country. Here are some top festivals to look forward to this summer in cities around the nation:
Chum Fest (Seattle): Residents flock to this annual celebration of the chopped fish parts, bones, and fluids that make the city’s flourishing marine industry possible
Shakespeare By The Dump (Fort Wayne, IN): Theater fans are invited to gather every Saturday night to watch performances of Shakespeare’s classics just outside the town landfill
Southwest Regional Pop Tent Expo (Santa Fe, NM): Tent dealers and enthusiasts alike converge on Santa Fe during mid-July to see the latest in portable canopy technology
Lincoln Park Zoo Adult/Animal Singles Mixer (Chicago): Every Friday after 7:30 p.m. during the summer, Chicago singles are invited to an adult cocktail hour at Lincoln Park Zoo to mix and mingle with unattached wildlife looking for love
Middlesex County Folk Festival (Central Massachusetts): Grab a group of friends, a spot on the lawn, and spend an afternoon ignoring some of the finest folk musicians in the area
Taste Of Giamatti (Philadelphia): Actor and amateur chef Paul Giamatti cooks dinner for all 590,000 households in Philadelphia over a four-month period
Carolina Beer Fest (Charleston, SC): This annual celebration of the nation’s finest breweries features a wide selection of craft beers and one horrific porta-potty
Toyota Independent Film Festival (Chicago): This annual event celebrates promising new directors screening films where the protagonist drives a Camry
Bad Art Crawl (San Diego): Residents and visitors are invited to peruse and buy bad art, from bad paintings to bad embroidery, bad jewelry, and bad handmade notebooks
Hey, Where Did My Friends Go? (New York): This hugely popular music festival consists largely of everyone who showed up a few minutes late wandering around a field and occasionally yelling “Jason?”
