Popular Kutztown Folk Festival returns
Your guide to family activities, art, crafts, quilts, shopping, foods and more
A showcase of Pennsylvania Dutch culture finally makes its return.
For the first time since 2019, the Kutztown Folk Festival will be held in its true form — with a host of family activities, shopping opportunities, seminars, food and more — July 2 to 10 at the Kutztown Fairgrounds.
Here’s everything you need to know about the return of the popular festival:
The basics
What: The Kutztown Folk Festival is the oldest continuously-operated folklife festival in America. Like most big-scale festivals, the pandemic forced the Kutztown festival to be virtual, both in 2020 and in 2021, featuring an online Quilt Auction and Quilt Store, contests, recorded musicians, and demonstrations by craftspeople and artisans.
When: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, July 2 to 10
Where: The Kutztown Fairgrounds, 225 N. Whiteoak St., Kutztown
How much: Admission is $16 for adults; $6 for students (13 to 17 years old); free, children 12 and under; $40 for a weekly pass. Online ticketing is encouraged. Credit cards are accepted and encouraged at all gates.
Parking: Free Accessibility: The Kutztown Folk Festival is ADA-approved and wheelchair-accessible. Wheelchairs and scooters are available for rent. Advance reservations are highly recommended. Call Kutztown Area Transport System at 610-683-3012.
Can I bring my pet? Pets who are up-to-date with their shots are permitted. All pets must be leashed and cleaned up after at all times.
New this year
Something fresh is coming to the festival this year.
The Fresh Fest Market will feature vendors offering healthier food options, local craft beers and specially crafted cocktails with local ingredients. The market will be in a designated area on the fairgrounds, known as The Grove. You’ll also find some educational presentations, kids’ activities, and entertainment.
The vendors include:
My Cup of Tea Herb
Farm: a small-scale farm in Mertztown, focused on
using sustainable growing practices to grow high-quality garden starts, potted plants, succulents, cacti, houseplants, and cut flowers. facebook.com/ MyCupofTeaHerbFarm
Haven Farmstead Table: cheese and “Cheese Chats” for those who want to learn more. havenfarmstead. com/
Tre Wood Fired: Fresh wood-fired pizzas, using local basil, heirloom tomatoes, local fresh mozzarella, local pepperoni, and roasted garlic oil.
Eight Oaks Farm Distillery: Farm-to-glass distillery near New Tripoli
Saucony Creek Brewing Company: Craft beer
The Kutztown Produce Shack: fresh fruits and vegetables
The Nesting Box Creamery: farm fresh eggs and artisan ice cream sandwiches
In addition, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary staff will be on hand to educate and entertain on the Fresh Fest Stage. They will have a live bird of prey with them and you can learn more about the adaptations and natural history of raptors.
Speaking of food ...
Of course, it wouldn’t be a festival without all the delicious, decadent, eat-tillyou-need-to-nap-it-off Dutch foods.
Some of the highlights:
The Country Kitchen:
Here’s your chance to enjoy an authentic Pennsylvania Dutch meal complete with the “seven sweets and seven sours” tradition, all cooked on a 1920s-era wood stove. Attendees can enjoy food cooked in the country kitchen during a 45-minute historical cooking presentation and meal limited to just eight guests per day. (Seatings are at 1 and 4 p.m. daily). The presentation is followed by a multi-course sit-down family-style meal in the country kitchen. The daily menu will vary among numerous traditional delicacies such as pork roast, baked ham, baked chicken, schnitz and knepp, ham and string beans, chicken pot pie, dumplings, lettuce with hot bacon dressing, pepper cabbage, cottage cheese and apple butter, red beat eggs, chow-chow (pickled vegetables), freshbaked bread, fruit pies, apple cobbler, rice pudding, and mint tea just to name a few. How much: $20 per person, kutztownfolkfestival.thundertix.com/ (Note: This is a potential sell-out.)
Ox roast: On five select days of the festival, you can watch an 800-pound Black Angus steer being slow-roasted on a specially designed, open-air, rotisserie-like custom-built roaster. The famous Ox Roast sandwich will be available all nine days of the festival.
Dietrich’s Fresh Meats and Treats: Come enjoy the Dutch meats, baked goods, and other delectable foods at the Dietrich’s Festival Farmers Market. They are famous for their smoked meats and baked treats that follow generations-old Dutch recipes. Among the baked goods, you’ll find shoofly pie (both traditional and chocolate); strawberry rhubarb pie, lemon sponge pie, funny cake and funeral pie.
The festival bake oven: If you’re been to this festival before, you have experienced the delicious smell of baking bread. The festival’s bake oven offers tempting hearth-baked goods while giving you a glimpse back in time at traditional outdoor baking techniques.
Corn pie: The Kutztown Fire Co. will be back with their famous pies — personal-sized, double-crust pies stuffed with a creamy corn
mixture.
The Quilt Barn
The Quilt Barn is a mustsee.
It’s a place to enjoy an arresting array of more than 1,500 stunning, hand-crafted quilts and wall-hangings in every imaginable color and size.
Quilts, available for purchase, range in size from king-size to cribsize, and many of them are made by local Mennonite women. The annual quilt auction will be held at noon July 9.
Festival fun
Along with the festival’s five stages of entertainment, you can:
Take part in an old-fashioned “cake walk”
Square dance
Catch a comedy show
Enjoy the sounds of the strolling Sauerkraut Band and two 19th century “impromptu” brass bands Watch the Lester Miller Family Dancers, which is made up of four generations of hoedown dancers Enjoy the Folk Festival Fourth of July parade
Along with those activities, the festival is full of fun for kids. The Children’s Farmyard Theater will present puppet shows, sing-alongs, story time, magic, a ventriloquist, and more. Kids can also enjoy craft and play areas.
Always popular is the Children’s Petting Zoo where kids and adults can feed and pet the farm animals. New this year are additional hands-on activities for children, including puppet making, more singalong music, and barn star drawing.
For history buffs
At the seminar stage, you can learn more about the Dutch dialect, traditions, hex signs, and more. The festival works closely with the Kutztown University Pennsylvania German Heritage Center, as well as educators from the university and the surrounding area.
Speaking of history, you can watch a re-enactment of the “Hanging of Suzanna Cox.” It’s a dark chapter in local Pennsylvania Dutch history.
The 30-minute re-enactment centers around Cox, who was sentenced to death for killing her baby. (There’s a dummy in the noose of course.) Cox was arrested and, after a one-day trial, she was found guilty of murder and hanged in what was the last public execution of a woman in Pennsylvania. The crowd at the hanging in what is now City Park in Reading was estimated to be about 20,000.
If that’s a bit too dark for you, you can also watch an Amish wedding, learn more about early farming techniques or take part in a country auction.
For the full schedule and more info
kutztownfestival.com/