GLOCESTER – Organizers of the Glocester Scarecrow Festival hope to brighten things up this year bringing a new theme to an annual event first held six years ago.
The 2022 Glocester Scarecrow Festival will take place on Saturday, Oct. 15 with an event set to feature live music, a marketplace, pony rides, face painting and more.
But as locals and a long list of past participants already know, the fun continues for weeks after, with dozens of creative scarecrows hanging around to greet passersby right through Halloween.
Planning for the event is now underway for the event itself, to feature music by the Bel Aire’s, Gooseberry Road and Lainey Dionne.
“We hope to add to this along Main Street,” said Scarecrow Festival Committee Chairperson Mark Rechter, a Glocester resident.
Pony rides and animals will once again be at Chepachet Baptist Church, with face painting, pumpkin painting and other children activities to take place at the nearby Glocester Manton Library. And the Glocester Scarecrow Marketplace will again feature vendors at the Kent Field Pavilion.
In 2022, it seems the main feature, the scarecrows, will have even more creativity to showcase after dark.
A contest first held in 2017, with 40 scarecrows scattered throughout Chepachet village in its first year, the festival challenges local residents and businesses to build something unique, from the traditional straw scarecrow creations, to unique, funny or scary figures – and participants deliver.
In 2021, more than 100 entries stretched across more than a mile of Glocester roadway, serving as both advertisements for their creators and an attraction all their own.
This year’s entries will feature a theme for the first time, dubbed, “Scarecrows in Illumination.” Participants are asked to include solar lights on their scarecrows to showcase a new effect under the Chepachet Village lights.
Businesses and organizations will also be asked to include QR codes on their advertising signs.
“This will give them a chance to fully advertise at an outdoor setting that has limited signage alongside their scarecrow,” said Rechter. “We think this will benefit all.”
Anyone is welcome to participate, whether their home or business is located in or outside of Glocester.
Applications for the festival, sponsored by the Chepachet Grange and the Glocester Libraries, will become available by mid-July at glocesterscarecrowfestival.org/.
More information is expected to be released closer to the festival.
