FARMINGTON — The Farmington Summer Fest is celebrating 60 years of a continuous summer festival in downtown Farmington, except for one summer at the height of Covid, when plans were aborted. This year, on Saturday, July 26, Summer Fest organizers will bring to life their exciting plans for the kind of fun, food, and entertainment that festival-goers have come to expect. Every year, it seems to get bigger and better.

The Amazing Summer Fest Race, run and coordinated by Joe Musumeci of Farmington Underground, is one of the most popular events of the past three years. Each year has brought a great turnout of participants who seem to have thoroughly enjoyed the exhilaration of running around town looking for clues and solving puzzles. This year presents another challenging opportunity to use your sleuthing skills. Participants work in pairs and race against time to complete their missions. Prizes are awarded for best times, best costumes, and best overall team spirit.

The ninth year of our annual Children’s Parade will take place at 11 am. This year, the theme is “Kids on Wheels”. We encourage kids to bring trikes, bikes, scooters, wagons, strollers or skates, or any home-made contraption with wheels. (No engines permitted.) Prizes will be awarded at the end of the parade, in the park, for best-decorated vehicle, best costume, and most original entry.

A very exciting addition to the parade this year will be students from Topsham, Maine, riding on unicycles. They are coming from Woodside Elementary School as members of the Woodside One Wheelers (WOW), an amazing performing arts group that has traveled to Philadelphia and Washington, DC, and performed all over New England. The WOW students will also show off their talents as jugglers and stilt-walkers as they roam throughout the festival.

Our musician line-up includes the local band – Lumus, as well as The Bank Mules, Crooked Bill, Arizona Rose, Randy Gauvin, Jan & John, and Leigh Wilkinson. There will be three music stations: one on the Entertainment Stage on Broadway, one in the gazebo in Meetinghouse Park and one in the Food Court on Main and Church Streets.

A Food Court, located in the Franklin County Employees’ Parking Lot on Church and Main, will consist of the American Legion hosting a chicken BBQ, Tex-Mex Express, and The Sweet Life Kettle Corn. (More food vendors to be announced.) Other food vendors on Church St. and Broadway are Eve’s Garden, The Family Table Kitchen and Bakery, and the famous Blue Crew Root Beer Stand.

The Mt. Blue High School Blue Crew Robotics team will also be exhibiting their current robotic projects. Everyone’s favorite, R2-Blue2, will be at Summer Fest once again to demonstrate what amazing feats the Mt. Blue students have achieved. In the park from 10 – 3, there will be lots of activities for families with children. There will be a bounce house, a petting zoo, Family-Focused Yoga, free sno-cones, carnival games, and music. Markus and Angelique Steelgrave will return this year with their clever magic and amazing balloon twisting. There is no cost to have balloons made to order right on the spot.

“Farmington’s Got Talent”, our annual local talent show, continues to be another popular event at Summer Fest. We’re back again this year with some new categories for prizes: we will have awards for dancing, acrobatics, sketches and skits, magic tricks, instrumental performances, and other original acts, in addition to vocal routines. Steve Brady from Brady’s Snowmobiles/ATV and Power Equipment generously lends us his beautiful flat-bed trailer for our Entertainment Stage.

Members of the singing group Crooked Bill will help us out with judging once again. Our Summer Fest Marketplace is filling up very quickly with vendors and exhibitors. We have over 50 spaces allocated to date, with room for a few more. They will be lined up along Broadway and on Church Street beside the Food Court. A list of exhibitors can be found on our Facebook page: facebook.com/welovesummerfest/.

Summer Fest is an all-volunteer and free event for the community, under the umbrella of the Farmington Downtown Association. Our festival is only made possible through the generosity of our sponsors. We are so grateful to our business partners who have faithfully contributed to our premier summer celebration.

For more information, contact coordinator Susun Terese at [email protected]. Sign-ups for the Amazing Summer Fest Race are available at https://bit.ly/AmazingSummerFest2025.