Summer 2025 festivals in Central Ohio: From washboard music to HoneyFest
LANCASTER — Festival season is finally here. You may be familiar with Picktown Palooza and Lancaster Festival, but what are some other options for festival fun?
Step out of your comfort zone with these quirky festivals in the Central Ohio area.
This fest will have a marketplace, treasure hunt and other entertainment and activities to kick off summer. The second annual festival will be from May 16 to May 18.
This year includes:
A bustling Pirate Marketplace with over 100 vendors, an outdoor Pirate Ship Playland, and the indoor Pirates Cove for Kids.
A Tri-County Treasure Hunt spanning 40 locations around Buckeye Lake.
Unique themed Treasure Hunt tours for Steampunk enthusiasts, Mermaids, Golf Cars, Motorcycles, Side-by-Sides, and Pontoon Boats.
Special offers at local businesses, plus a bounty of live music and engaging activities for the entire Pirate family.
During Prohibition, New Straitsville was the moonshine capital as they produced more moonshine than anywhere else in the county. Now, they have hosted a festival every year in May since 1971. This four-day festival includes live entertainment, amusement rides, food and a parade. It takes place on Main Street from May 23 to May 26.
Logan is home to the last operational washboard factory in the United States, the Columbus Washboard Company. Every year, this festival offers live washboard music, washboard factory tours, craft vendors and food trucks. It will be from June 5 through 7 in historic downtown Logan.
More: Tornado watch vs warning: How to prepare, where to seek shelter
This music and arts festival, which tours to Michigan, Indiana and North Carolina, is coming to Hocking Hills on Aug. 9 and 10. Tickets can be bought at hippiefest.org.
If you want to experience all things honey, this is the place to be. There will be a honey bake-off, honey food, wine tasting, bee memorabilia, hands-on honey extractions and more. This free event will be from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Sept. 5 and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sept. 6. For more info on parking, location and more, visit lithopolishoneyfest.com.
This festival in historic downtown Canal Winchester has live blues music, world-class ribs, a wide variety of quality non-rib food options, children's activities, fan-cooled dining areas, and a beer & wine garden for our Blues/Rib-loving guests 21 and over, according to the website. It will be on July 26 and 26, rain or shine. For more info on parking and the entertainment lineup, check their website.
Celebrate local beers at Lancaster's annual BrewFest. Tickets went on sale May 2 and the festival will be from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 16. For more information and where to buy tickets, visit lancasterbrewfest.com.
This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Unique festivals to attend this summer in Central Ohio
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His hard stare meets me every morning, but now I return his gaze. The old pirate doesn't make me flinch anymore, the way he did when I was a boy, because I finally know who he is. I learned this by testing the truth of the family stories that I'd grown up with about Jacinto Lobrano, my great-great-grandfather and the pirate Jean Laffite's right-hand man, during a six-day trip along the Gulf Coast. In my father's family, this unsigned oil painting is passed down to the firstborn son, and now hangs on the wall of my house in a village outside of Uzès in France. Jacinto, who was born on the island of Procida in the Bay of Naples sometime during the 1790s, is depicted as a stern but handsome man in his late 40s, with wavy chestnut hair and a small gold earring in one ear. He presents as a prosperous and possibly respectable family man. But he was still a pirate, a fact I clung to growing up in a Connecticut suburb that pasteurized difference in defense of propriety. 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