Sunflower fest blooms in Pelham
Howell Family Farm to host event over two weekends
Get your cameras and your selfie sticks ready for the perfect photo opportunity.
Howell Family Farm in Pelham is offering a chance for visitors to take their pictures in a field of 100,000 sunflowers.
Well-known for its pumpkins and Halloween attractions, the farm at 2878 Holland Rd. is opening its doors for its inaugural Sunflower Festival. The event will be held Aug. 17 and 18, and again Aug. 24 and 25 from 3 to 8 p.m.
“People can come take their own selfies, there’s going to be live music, food and drinks,” said Skylar Bough, the farm’s assistant manager. “It’s going to be a lot of fun and we’re hoping this will become an annual thing.”
The seeds for the festival were planted after last summer’s media frenzy over Bogle Seeds Farm in Flamborough.
The small family farm opened its field of sunflowers to the public for pictures until too many people showed up, trespassed on the property, knocked down plants, stole the heads of the flowers and caused traffic problems.
“About 7,000 people showed up to the family farm that didn’t have the capacity to handle all of that. But we are set up to handle thousands of people a day, and thought we do something like that,” Bough said.
During the fall season, Howell’s can accommodate 5,000 people at a time and has a decent handle on crowd control.
Bough doesn’t foresee having many issues with guests destroying the field.
“Normally our customers are pretty respectful and we will be heavily staffed during the festival, with people patrolling the fields,” she said. “Our corn mazes, we’ve had some issues in the past with kids destroying them so we have people walking through them to make sure there is no monkey business.”
Only 2,000 tickets are being issued each day of the four-day event. Bough said the decision to limit tickets was made to ensure overcrowding isn’t an issue.
Some of the farm’s attractions will be up and running, including a jumping pillow, wagon rides, train rides and an animal farm.
Tickets are $13 a person and can only be purchased at eieiodeals.com.