How one small town will play stand-in for Stars Hollow as ‘Gilmore Girls’ convention returns to CT

The 2024 Firelight Event — formerly known as The Gilmore Girls Fan Festival — is making its grand return to Connecticut this fall.

The three-day event will take place Oct. 18-20 in Guilford. A convention for diehard fans of “Gilmore Girls,” that charmingly chatty romantic comedy family series from the 2000s, the Firelight Event seeks to happen in towns reminiscent of Stars Hollow, the quaint fictional Connecticut hamlet where the show takes place. The convention comprises dozens of events, including talks and concerts featuring “Gilmore Girls” cast members, a costume contest, trivia matches, presentations by the hosts of “Gilmore Girls” podcasts and other experts on the show, crafts and activities, a “town hall debate” as happens on the show, local tourism opportunities and more.

“I drove the entire coast of Connecticut,” said Texas-based fan convention organizer Jennie Whitaker. “Then I drove into Guilford and thought “What a cool town!”

“Firelight” in the event’s title is a reference to the Firelight Festival, an annual celebration of the founding of Stars Hollow. Historical recreations, parades and other elements of the festival amplify some of the differences and disputes among the townsfolk while also showing Stars Hollow’s community spirit.

In the decade that Whitaker has been holding “Gilmore Girls” fan gatherings, there have been six different locations. The first event was held in Washington Depot. The second, third and fourth were in Kent. Then there were several years in Unionville, Canada, where parts of the show had been filmed. In 2020, during the COVID shutdown, the convention was held virtually, with many more “Gilmore Girls” cast members participating than has happened at the live events. The festival returned to Kent in 2021, and for the past two years, it was held in Ogonquit, Maine. Now comes Guilford, the first shoreline town to host a Firelight Event.

Stars Hollow is often presumed to be in Litchfield County. In interviews, the show’s creator Amy Sherman-Palladino has mentioned Washington Depot as one of the inspirations. But it’s said in numerous episodes that Stars Hollow is half an hour’s bus ride from Hartford (where Rory attends a private school). The distance from Washington Depot to Hartford is over an hour. Other popular Stars Hollow candidates are much closer (West Hartford) or just as far (New Milford).

There are plenty of small towns around the state that could fit the bill, but it’s widely believed that Litchfield County is the best overall fit for the general small-town feel of the show. Working with a “superfan” of the show, a story on the Travel Channel website listed “23 New England Towns That Might As Well Be Stars Hollow,” only eight of them in Connecticut: Durham, East Haddam, Essex, Kent, Old Lyme, Wallingford and Washington Depot.

The vagueness of the actual location is a boon for Whitaker, who doesn’t have to book a specific inn in a specific town for her convention to feel authentic. There just needs to be a warm small-town vibe.

“There’s always some type of connection that makes it feel real,” Whitaker said.

The environment, even if not necessarily accurate, is crucial, because the Firelight Event isn’t the kind of convention that seldom leaves the ballrooms or conference rooms of the hotel in which it is staying.

“We want to be a boost to the community, benefit the town,” Whitaker said. “We never wanted to do this in just a hotel or a ballroom. It doesn’t seem right, since the show is about the town and the community. We ask ‘How can we support the small businesses in these towns?’ We use local vendors. We’re not a big convention, so we can put up a tent or find a place that will fit us all. This year we’ll be using the Guilford Fairgrounds barn and the Guilford Green.”

Once a town has been picked for the Firelight Event, Whitaker meets with local businesses, the chamber of commerce and other organizations to see how they can work together most effectively.

Actors associated with “Gilmore Girls” have been special guests at the events, which draw anywhere from 500 to 1,500 fans a year. “We’ve had from 12 to 20 cast members every year,” Whitaker said. “When we had the virtual convention, we had 40. We support the actors’ other projects.”

As for the fans, “we see all kinds of pairings: mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters. Once we had a couple on their honeymoon,” Whitaker added.

Whitaker didn’t become a “Gilmore Girls” fan herself until a couple of years after the show ended its run and lived on in syndicated reruns.

“I was watching the news and it came on afterward,” Whitaker said. “I watched an episode from 2005. This was pre-streaming, so I started recording it on TiVo. I told my husband about it and we started watching it together. I watched it out of order for a year. Then eventually I bought the box set. Then Netflix set it up.

“It’s easy to watch. I fell in love with the way the story goes. It’s sweet. No murders,” she said.

The idea of holding a fan convention came from learning more about the “Gilmore Girls” fan community. “My husband and I run a small public relations firm in Texas. We’d never run a festival before,” Whitaker said.

There were over 150 episodes of the original series, the first six seasons airing on the WB network and the seventh on The CW. The final episode aired in 2007. A four-part miniseries reunited much of the cast in 2016. It was that miniseries that helped inspire the fan convention.

“The revival was the impetus for why we wanted to start it,” she said.

A weekend pass to the Firelight Event, which includes all events plus an official Fan Fest T-shirt, costs $395 and is available through the Fan Fest Society website at thefanfestsociety.com/.