Corn Roast Festival in Loveland, Colorado

Loveland's annual Corn Roast Festival was held on August 21st and 22nd. The weekend was filled with lots of fun activities for all ages. My husband and I attended the festival and enjoyed many of the events. Here is a recap of our experience at the Corn Roast Festival in Loveland, Colorado.

Friday Night's Activities

The festival began on Friday evening with a corn shucking contest. Teams from 36 businesses and organizations from Loveland competed to see how many ears of corn they could shuck in 3 minutes. It was fun to watch the competition and see how seriously the teams took this event.

After the shucking contest, a street dance was held. Most festival events were held at Fairgrounds Park in Loveland, so the street dance was actually on grass, but it didn't matter. There was still a lot of dancing going on to the music of That Eighties Band from Denver. The band was excellent! They played and sang with so much energy, going from one song to the next without even pausing in between numbers.

Saturday Activities

The activities on Saturday began with a balloon launch, pancake breakfast and a parade. We did not attend these events - maybe next year.

We headed to Fairgrounds Park in the afternoon to take in some of the activities. We walked around and checked out what the festival had to offer. There were lots of food vendors serving hot dogs, brats, pizza slices, BBQ, funnel cakes, cotton candy, and more. There were also various local businesses with booths set up, as well as some vendors selling jewelry and artwork.

Small children were kept entertained by going to the petting zoo or taking a pony ride. Older kids could be found in the bounce castle or on the bungee ride.

There was musical entertainment throughout the afternoon. We took time to sit down and listen to the music of Colorado native, Branden Sipes. What a treat! Branden is a very talented musician. He plays the acoustic guitar and composes his own music. His beautiful songs and soothing voice combined with his relaxed style, gave us a nice break from the busy activities going on around the park.

One of the highly anticipated events of the day was the rubber duck race. The Loveland Rotary Club sold small rubber ducks to float down the river next to the park. It was quite a sight to see thousands of rubber ducks floating down the river towards the finish line. Each duck was numbered on the bottom and there were several prizes for the fastest ducks. The grand prize was $1,000. Proceeds from the sale went to purchase dictionaries for each third grader in the school district.

Another popular event was the corn eating contest. Various age groups competed to see who could eat the most ears of corn in 3 minutes.

Although we did not compete in the corn eating contest, we did eat a few ears of corn ourselves. You couldn't beat the price of $1.00 for a boiled ear of corn and $2.00 for a roasted ear of corn. We took our hot, buttered ears of corn to the beer garden and shared a brew. It hit the spot, since the temperature had climbed to 95 degrees by mid afternoon.

It appeared that the annual Corn Roast Festival in Loveland was a huge success this year. We had a great time and will definitely go back again next year.

Sources:
Writer's personal experience
http://www.reporterherald.com
http://www.eightiesband.net/home.asp
http://www.brandensipes.com/index.html