just recently went to the Madison Regatta. we have boat races in the Detroit area, but Madison (Indiana) makes it part of a 4-day festival. nice time, but man, the weather. it wasn’t that hot (89°F) but the humidity was so high you could see the air.
I have been several times to a long-running garlic festival in Saugerties, NY.
They gave tastes of many many things, including garlic-infused chocolate chip cookies. We tried them. Good, we thought, but not exactly garlicky, now were they? We bought a few. The next day we each had one. Oh. My. Definite garlic taste. The difference was, we had already eaten so many foods laden with garlic at the festival that the relative subtlety of the garlic in the cookies passed us by. Rebooting and starting from zero garlic in the system the next day made it very clear that the cookies DID have garlic–and a fair amount of it.
Missed the Spam Jam in Austin, MN, by a week one year. Oh well.
Holland Fest just ended in the small community nearest my home. Klompen dancers sweeping the streets in their wooden shoes, a parade of folks in traditional Dutch garb, oliebolen, worstenbroodjes, metwurst, snert, and other dutch treats. Get your salty licorice delights there too!
My dad used to strafe the parade in his old Stearman biplane, with his Netherlands-born mom in the front cockpit waving to them all. He was known as Van der Wrakken, aka the Crashing Dutchman due to an unfortunate incident with a previous plane.
The village is quite Calvinist, so no beer is served at the fest, and it only runs on Friday and Saturday, with Sunday’s activities listed as: See you at church.
I’ve been to the World Grits Festival, in St. George, SC. Earlier in my career, I worked for Quaker Oats, and we were one of the primary sponsors of the festival (being one of the largest producers of grits), so our team attended.
One of the highlights of the festival is the Rolling in the Grits Contest, which has to be seen to be believed (YouTube link). For those unable to look at the video: imagine people diving into a kiddie swimming pool full of cold wet grits, and rolling around in it; the objective is to come out of the pool after 10 seconds with as much grits (as measured by weight) on you as possible.
My colleagues attempted to convince me to be our token contestant, but when I realized I would have to spend the rest of the day with wet, grits-laden clothes (I hadn’t brought a change of clothes), I opted out. 
That’s a great story!
I’ve never been there, but will some day when I have lots of time and more money. Frozen Dead-Guy Days, Nederland, Colorado.
TLDR: there’s a guy in a cryopreservation chamber outside of town, and so let’s throw a days-long party, because why not?
Pretty much every small town in Louisiana bills itself as the “_____ Capital of the World! (CotW)” and holds its annual _____ Festival. My old home town of Gonzales was the Jambalaya Capital of the World, and the Jambalaya Festival was always the 1st weekend in June (looks like it has now moved to the end of May). Following is a listing of other CotW’s off the top of my head:
Breaux Bridge - the Crawfish CotW
Crowley - the Rice CotW
Rayne - the Frog CotW
Venice - the Redfish CotW
Pontchatoula - the Strawberry CotW
Franklinton - the Watermelon CotW
Ruston - the Peach CotW
Scott - the Boudin CotW
LaPlace - the Andouille CotW
Des Allemands - the Catfish CotW
New Iberia - the Sugar Cane Cotw
I’m sure there are others that I’ve missed, but that should give everyone a place to start.
Gilroy was a small town fifty years ago. When I was a kid (I grew up in the Santa Clara Valley as it once was known), it was about 10,000 people, mostly farmers and ranchers. Now, not so much.
Now MY town festival (in Western MA virtually every town has one) is really small-town. The skillet toss, the wood-splitting contest, the church ladies’ pie booth, the guy who sharpens knives, the guy who sells furs that he’s trapped & tanned over the winter, the library book sale, and of course, the parade, dominated by small tractors, and the volunteer fire department’s ancient trucks. Pretty much everybody goes. I also go to the next town over which is considerably larger (they have three restaurants!), which has a comparatively gigantic festival, the whole main street is a festival. Okay, they only have the one street.
I made it there once; I guess I miss a lot of the local ones. And Ligonier Days I did a couple times as a participant. We’re in a great region for small community festivals and events; although I must admit to skipping the Big City things like Picklesburgh and some of the for=profit like Penns Colony. Nothing against them but they aren’t my bag unless I’m scheduled entertainment.
PS – if you’ve been at PC I used to narrate all the battles.
West Salem, WI has “June Dairy days”, not to be confused with nearby “Butterfest” in Sparta, WI
I spent three summers in Door County – seems there was a festival somewhere every weekend.
My city has Applefest. La Crosse has Riverfest, Oktoberfest, Irish Fest, Bicycle fest, and probably more
Brian
I was finally going to attend the Potterville, MI Gizzard Fest when the weather canceled my plans. It looks like it’s dead now so I’ll never have a chance again.
I’ve been to the Cedar, MI Polka Festival a couple times.
IIRC there was some unnamed small festival in Peshawbestown, MI. Peshawbestown is part of the Grand Traverse Bay Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians reservation. It may have been nominally a church festival; I know the church itself was running a chicken dinner. It’s hard to separate out the small village that grew up around the historic Catholic mission from the church itself in decades old memory.
In the only arguably “small town” festival, I’ve been to the Traverse City, MI National Cherry Festival several times. The city itself is only 14k population. The micropolitan area though is closing in about 148k by wikipedia. It’s at the height of the summer tourism season too. Attendance can outstrip the resident population of TC itself.
There are plaques embedded in the sidewalk commemorating all the winners and their winning distance.
On the spiky-er side, there’s the Coalinga Horned Toad Derby
Came here to give a thumbs up to the OP
I lived in Collinsville IL for a long time. My landlord was the farm manager for the biggest horseradish house in the town !
I LOVE Horseradish.
Grapefest, Tontitown Arkansas. Italian immigrants settled here, established vineyards. Mostly gone now, but the festival remains. Aceplace57 I beat you to this one. Next thing you’ll tell me you’ve never attended Toad Suck Days.
Oh, man, I would SO go to a Neutrino Festival. Dang, it looks like this year’s was on July 13
Whenever I think of all the endless festivals across this country I think of “The Man Who Traveled in Elephants” and I get tears in my eyes.
I’ve been to Twins Days multiple times as a kid (my mom volunteered there since she belonged to the Twinsburg Garden Club and they always helped out in some way).
I’ve also been to the Akron Soapbox Derby, which has become a multi-day event, and the Buzzard Fest.
When I lived in Virginia Beach, we’d go to the Pungo Strawberry Festival. Now that I’m in NC, I want to check out the NC Pickle Festival in Mount Olive, but haven’t made it out there yet.
Banana splits were invented in the tiny town of Latrobe, PA. (Population 7,949…salute!) We went to the Banana Split Festival last year and can’t wait to go back again.
Latrobe’s other claims to fame are Fred Rogers, Arnold Palmer, and Steelers training camp. All this within 40 minutes of my front door.
Back when we were relaunching the Northern California Renaissance Faire in 2002-ish, we did promo gigs at a bunch of little produce-related fairs and festivals in the region, including the Castroville Artichoke Festival, the San Benito Olive Festival (might be no more), and Morgan Hill Mushroom Mardi Gras Festival. And yes, we were at the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
I’ve been to their festival.