WGBY Asparagus Festival

The WGBY Asparagus Festival celebrates all things local and agricultural. It's an outdoor, family-friendly event with live music, a large farmers/makers' market, fresh food and drink from around the Pioneer Valley, and PBS Kids games and live characters, including Curious George and The Cat in the Hat (from the Springfield Museums). The WGBY Asparagus Festival is free with recommended donation ($5/person; $20/family) in support of educational programming and public television. It will be held rain or shine. LIVE MUSIC While the Farmers’ and Makers’ Market continues to be a draw among festival-goers, growing in popularity are the food, drink, and live music featured at the WGBY Asparagus Festival. This year, WGBY’s “Rooted in the Valley” stage will feature Emmy Award-winning children’s musician Mister G at 11:30am, followed by three popular Signature Sounds Recordings acts: • Heather Maloney (2–3 p.m.) — A singer-songwriter merging folk roots with indie rock. • JigJam (3:30–4:30 p.m.) — A quartet blending the best of traditional Irish music with Bluegrass and Americana in a new genre dubbed “I-Grass” or “CeltGrass.” • Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters (5–6 p.m.) — A traditional, honky-tonk-flavored country/Americana sound. LOCAL FOOD & CRAFT BEER Attendees will not go hungry, with food from babyBerk (the UMass food truck), Esselon Coffee Roasting, Mi Tierra Hadley, North Hadley Congregational Church, and Spoleto Restaurant. In addition, there will be treats from Crooked Stick Pops. Flayvors of Cook Farm, North Hadley Sugar Shack, Sun Kim Bop restaurant & food truck, and Vibesman's Jerk Shack.. All food vendors will feature local asparagus among their menu offerings. There will be no going thirsty either, with sodas from Harmony Springs, coffee from Dean's Beans Organic Coffee Company, and local craft brews: • Abandoned Building Brewery • Artifact Cider Project • Artisan Beverage Cooperative (Ginger Libation) • Berkshire Brewing Company • Black Birch Vineyard • Headwater Cider • Lefty's Brewing Company • New City Brewery • The People's Pint FAMILY FUN & FARM DISPLAYS Among the nearly 100 vendors at the WGBY Asparagus Festival are many family-friendly activities and educational displays. PBS Kids characters Curious George and The Cat in the Hat will be on hand for meet-n-greets with children. Outdoor games will include the Valley Asparagus Pick and Valley Scramble, an agricultural-themed spinoff of PBS Kids spelling game Kart Kingdom. Plus, families can watch experts quickly bunch asparagus. Other educational displays and booths will be hosted by Amherst College, Center for EcoTechnology, Central Rock Hadley, Hilltown Sleddogs, Kestrel Land Trust, Kids, Art & Nature, NOFA/Mass, and Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association's Jurassic Roadshow. The WGBY Asparagus Festival is sponsored in by part HP Hood, Greenfield Savings Bank, Eversource MA, Nourse Farms, Whole Foods Market, Dave's Soda and Pet City, and Alternative Recycling Systems. Media sponsors include Daily Hampshire Gazette and Yankee Magazine. Special thanks to the Town of Hadley and the Hadley Police Department. The WGBY Asparagus Festival is a free, family-friendly event. Donations welcome; proceeds benefits public television. Full details at https://wgby.org/asparagus