Festivals around the world often celebrate the finer things in life: wine, great food, jazz and more. Here in Oregon, we do all of that too - but we also give some festival love to things like mushrooms, aliens and crawfish. Why? Well, because they're there. Oh, and because these obscure to odd festivals are still accompanied by outstanding and oh-so-Oregon food and drink, music and merriment. Read on to discover a few of our favorites.
DaVinci Soars, Scuttles and Slithers to Staggering New Heights
Get in touch with your inner inventor July 18-20 during DaVinci Days in Corvallis. This unique Willamette Valley festival sparks creativity, celebrates innovation and fosters the understanding of art, science and technology. Watch human-powered, all-terrain kinetic vehicles slosh through muddy puddles, glide along city streets and defy gravity with every turn at the Kinetic Challenge race. DaVinci Days also features an electric car race, where inventions hurl down the roads, silent and clean. Another popular attraction is the open-air flying art exhibit with winged creatures and other vehicles soaring overhead. Offering hands-on activities for all ages, music, films, entertainment and more, DaVinci Days embodies the genius of Leonardo with intriguing and engaging surprises around every corner.
UFOs: Unidentified Festival in Oregon
The annual UFO Festival is held at the McMenamin's Hotel Oregon in McMinnville. Beginning as a way to honor the famous 1950 Trent UFO sighting, where two local residents witnessed and photographed a UFO (said to be some of the most credible images of UFOs to date), the festival has since grown to be the second largest UFO festival in the nation. Extraterrestrial lovers unite each May to enjoy out-of-this-world sounds by The Luminescent Orchestrii, dash along a one mile glow-in-the dark fun run, listen to forums held by top alien abduction experts and watch a screening of Star Dreams, a documentary about the mystery of crop circles. Don't forget to dress up your furry friends for the pet alien costume contest, and join the conga lines at the annual alien costume ball.
Fungus Among Us
From the fungi feast featuring delectable mushroom dishes to the guided mushroom walks throughout Cape Perpetua, m ushrooms pop up all over the Oregon Coast town of Yachats Oct. 15-17 during the Yachats Village Mushroom Festival. Taste mushroom-inspired cuisine at local restaurants throughout the weekend or visit the Harvest Festival Farmers Market for fresh and dried delectable 'shrooms picked right from the local forests, as well as other local produce. Mushroom walks, talks and workshops are offered throughout the weekend to educate fungus-lovers about wild mushrooms - both edible and toxic.
Seeing Isn't Always Believing
The Faux Film Festival in Portland is puzzling, frightening, mysterious and hilarious. Taking place each April, an unpredictable and truly unreal assortment of films descends on the Hollywood Theater , a historic venue showing films and hosting performances for more than 80 years. The festival includes fake movie trailers, infomercials and PSAs, along with mocumentaries and music video parodies. Last year's audience award winners included Li'l Cocktail Lounge, a commercial selling a cocktail-themed child's play set, and 300 Pounds, an epic battle of 300 pound men.
When Life Gives You Crawfish... Ask for a Lemon
1951 was a monumental year for Tualatim, O re. - crawfish overtook the Willamette River, and a brand-spankin' new VFW Hall was built. To celebrate the excitement of this seemingly unrelated big news, the city fired up the cooking pots, went crawfishing and put on a swanky event in the new venue. Thus, the annual Tualatin Crawfish Festival was born and has been going strong ever since. The festival is rich with historic controversy and tall tales, including a battle with Louisiana about who owned crawfish superiority. A Louisiana voodoo queen tried to settle possession rights herself by placing a curse on the festival in 1976. But even in the face of black magic, the Tualatin Crawfish Festival carries on as the oldest (and dare we tempt fate to say, still the best!) such festival in the nation. Taking place Aug. 8-9, attendees celebrate with a cook-off, a crawfish eating contest, live music, craft vendors, and of course, the delightful curse of more crawfish than you could ever eat.
Planning to festival hop for this summer's road trip? Oregon's quirky festivals don't stop with mushrooms and UFOs, and we'd love to give you the grand tour. Let us know if you would like to hear about other Oregon oddities, or if we can provide more information about anything mentioned above. Meanwhile, go to [Back to Press Releases Main]
