What’s the weirdest local festival or event in your area?

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  1. Philadelphia has the Naked Bike Ride – which is actually happening this month on the 26th! It’s one of a bunch of similar events worldwide, and probably the best-known. The ride is and has always been about cycling advocacy and body positivity. There’s always some prudes who complain, but the route is well-publicized in advance so it’s not hard to not see it if you don’t want to. I’ll only judge if you’re riding a city bike rental fully nude. That’s just gross.

  2. Maybe the world’s largest frog leg festival. It’s maybe 45 minutes away from where I live. I’ve been a few times. It’s usually pretty busy

  3. St Joseph’s Day/Super Sunday or our version of San Fermin, maybe?

    On Super Sunday, various Mardi Gras Indian groups do a parade/dance off/festival in elaborate and absolutely stunning costumes. It’s quite the sight.

    Our version of San Fermin is a running of the bulls, Spanish style, only with people on roller skates with whiffe bats wearing horned helmets.

  6. We have the Horseradish festival

    Worlds largest ketchup bottle festival

    Italian fest (food is SO good)

  8. We have the Posen Potato Festival in Posen, Michigan. Closer to me we have the Pirate Festival in Boyne City and at the local ski resort we have the Hemlock Open where you start your day by skiing down the hill in your golf clothes, then jump in a golf cart to go play 18 holes of golf. It’s supposed to signal the end of winter.

  12. Here in East Texas, in a small town called Grand Saline, there’s a Salt Festival every year which has music, food, and a bunch of other stuff that plays homage to Morton and the salt mine(one of 3 in the country) that’s a big employer for the town and the remnants of a 250 million year old sea. They even have the Salt Palace museum, the world’s only building made entirely out of salt.

  17. Puerto Rico 🇵🇷 has many festivals. None are as “unique” as the mask festival in Hatillo.

  19. The iron horse bicycle race. We have a touristy coal powered steam engine train and every year on Memorial Day, they shut down the highway and people on bikes take off and race it. The route goes about 50ish miles and crests over two 11,000 foot (~3400m) passes. There’s a big party at the end of it. There’s always a guy who does it on a unicycle and I have no clue how.

  20. Not my area, but there’s a town in Maine that has a festival dedicated to a soda that maybe a dozen people like. My grandmother, myself, and my wife are among that dozen.

  21. Y’all know what worm gruntin’ is?

    >Most worm charming methods involve vibrating the soil, which encourages the worms to the surface. In 2008, researchers from Vanderbilt University claimed that the worms surface because the vibrations are similar to those produced by digging moles, which prey on earthworms. The same technique is used by many species of bird, which devour the worms as they appear above ground.

    >The activity is known by several different names and the apparatus and techniques vary significantly. “Worm grunting” generally refers to the use of a “stob”, a wooden stake that is driven into the ground, and a “rooping iron” which is used to rub the stob.

    Now that you know, I invite you all to the annual Worm Gruntin’ Festival in beautiful Sopchoppy, Florida. Music! Food! Worms! And the crowning of the Worm Gruntin’ Queen!

    https://www.wormgruntinfestival.com/

  22. It’s a very standard small town festival, but my hometown has the Strawberry Festival every year. We are not known for growing strawberries.

  23. Tualatin, a suburb of Portland, Oregon, has a pumpkin regatta in October where they race giant pumpkins across the lake.

  24. In the Acadiana region of Louisiana exists a festival called Courir de Mardi Gras. It’s based on a medieval tradition no longer celebrated in France called fête de la quémande, or feast of begging. They dress in elaborate and colorful handmade costumes and go from door to door to sing and dance for ingredients for a communal dinner.

    A Capitaine on horseback is the first to approach the house and ask for permission to be on their property.

    [Here’s one example of their costumes.](https://i.natgeofe.com/n/86da59f3-78af-4b2d-9503-0e14791281c1/08-courir-de-mardi-gras-louisiana_2x3.jpg)

    [Here’s another example.](https://i.natgeofe.com/n/02455964-47e3-4ac9-a613-8f6e1f805e0d/15-courir-de-mardi-gras-louisiana.jpg?w=826&h=550)

  28. We have a bacon festival in Richmond. I didn’t know if that’s weird but it’s a thing that happens. We also used to have the GWAR-BQ in Richmond but we don’t have that anymore unfortunately

  30. Night of a Thousand Stevies.

    It was the once a year event in NYC in the village that was basically a big celebration of Stevie Nicks. So tons of people dressing up like her. It looks like it’s branched out to an event in New Orleans as well.

  32. My neighbourhood (Pigtown) in Baltimore has a yearly festival celebrating its history of being the final stop for pigs destined for the local slaughterhouses via the B&O railroad. There’s the usual festival stuff of food and beer and other vendors, but the main feature is a pig race commemmorating the fact that the pigs used to be offloaded from boxcars and run through the streets of the neighbourhood en masse to the slaughterhouses.

    (Fun fact, there is *also* a Pigtown festival in Limerick, Ireland which also celebrates its history as a major production center of pig products. In their case it’s bacon/ham specifically rather than just general pork/slaughtering.)

  33. It’s been years since they’ve done one, but we used to have the Great Arkansas Pig Out. It was like a county fair but bigger and the big event was they’d hose down a baseball diamond to make it muddy then release a greased pig for kids to chase. The kid that caught the greasy pig won a new bike.

    And yes, I’m aware of how redneck this sounds but it was really fun

  35. There’s an annual accordion festival near me. It’s next week if you want to go.

    cotatifest.com

  38. In Delaware where I grew up, farmers would enter into a competition to turn their farm equipment into pumpkin launching machines and compete for the farthest launch, called Pumpkin Chunkin, but I heard they moved it elsewhere.

  40. The Great Texas Mosquito Festival, with a giant inflatable mosquito name Willie-Man-Chew with giant cowboy boots and hat. 3 days, 13,000 people, live music, BBQ, vendors, contests, carnival rides

    https://www.mosquitofestival.com/

    And the No Name Festival. It’s a festival that never settled on a name.

  41. There’s a big to-do in Gilmer, TX every fall called the East Texas Yamboree. It was started up in the 1930s to celebrate the recovery of local sweet potato crops after a scourge of weevils. It takes place over four days and features a parade, carnival, livestock shows, various trade shows, antique car show, street and barn dances, and an elected Yamboree Court culminating in the crowning of the year’s Yamboree Queen.

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