Canal Winchester finally ready to mark 100th Labor Day Festival
How do you celebrate 100 years, albeit belatedly?
Members of the Canal Winchester Labor Day Festival Committee have been planning this year’s free, three-day party Sept. 3-5 since November of last year.
Billed as Ohio’s “largest and longest-running” Labor Day celebration, the Canal Winchester festival began in 1920 as a small gathering called the Fall Festival. The community was gearing up to mark the festival’s centennial in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic created a two-year interruption.
The festival traditionally has attracted about 30,000 visitors, according to organizers.
“We’re bringing in bigger entertainment this year than we’ve had in the past, more national names, to bring more people downtown to enjoy that,” festival committee President Carolyn Ebert said. “We have a new ride vendor this year, so they’ll be a little different. We’ll also have more food vendors this year. We’ve really just tried to add to what we’ve already had and make it bigger and better.”
The year’s festival features main-stage musical performances by Uncle Kracker (9 p.m. Sept. 4) and Epic Eagles, an Eagles tribute band (9 p.m. Sept. 3).
The lineup also includes a parade (1 p.m. Sept. 5), car show (Sept. 4), carnival rides, ice cream social, animals from the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and the Eyes of Freedom Memorial, which honors the 22 Marines and Navy corpsman of Lima Company who were killed in action in Iraq.
In planning the centennial event, festival committee Vice President Mike Coolman said organizers wanted to open more seating for entertainment this year and provide something for both older and younger children.
“We’re going to have a zipline and a ‘ninja warrior’ obstacle course, and we’re even bringing in a mechanical bull to ride,” he said.
Coolman also said the committee focused on getting more food vendors, which include the popular Amish Donuts and Jimmy Jawbreakers, plus dining tents along Waterloo Street.
The beer garden will be showing the Ohio State-Notre Dame football game Saturday evening on big-screen TVs.
This year’s festival received a financial boost from Canal Winchester City Council, which voted unanimously to provide the event with $30,000 after “key sponsors” couldn’t support the celebration.
The contribution comes from the city’s bed-tax fund. It helps projects that will “enhance Canal Winchester for its residents and visitors,” according to city guidelines.
“A lot of the sponsors who have sponsored us before haven’t financially recovered yet (from the pandemic),” Coolman said. “They’re facing manpower shortages … which means less revenue and profit. They’re struggling. It’s just simply that.”
It can take about $80,000 to fund the event, Ebert said.
“I think many people believe the festival is funded by the city, which isn’t true,” she said. “We just encourage people to come out and enjoy this free event. We know people are ready to socialize and come together again.”
For more information about this year’s Canal Winchester Labor Day Festival, visit cwlaborday.org.
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This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Canal Winchester finally ready to mark 100th Labor Day Festival
