Organizers Confirm Cancellation of 2021 Canal Winchester Labor Day Festival, Continue Planning for Hometown Day

The Canal Winchester Labor Day Committee is busy making plans for our Hometown Day celebration scheduled for Saturday, September 4th.  We hope it reminds many of the wonderful Labor Day Festivals from long ago – a small, community event for the entire family. 

As was previously announced, the Canal Winchester Labor Day Festival Board and Committee made the difficult decision to cancel the 2021 festival.  The group begins planning, scheduling, and securing the many moving parts of the annual festival in January.  At that time this year, we were facing state-mandated COVID-19 event guidelines with attendance restrictions of thirty percent.  Our three-day event brings almost thirty thousand visitors to our city, and there was no feasible way to control the crowd.

In addition to these restrictions, we also had financial concerns.  The annual event budget averages eighty thousand dollars and the CWLD Festival is solely funded by donations and sponsorship.  Although the City of Canal Winchester provides considerable support, including the use city property, water and electric, and offers City staff for street closures and cleanup, the festival is not a City sponsored event.  Due to the effects the pandemic had on businesses, our largest financial sponsors indicated they were unable to support the event at the same level as previous years.  Because we could not count on our major donors to support us this year, a three-day event was out of the question.

Hometown Day will to be a fun-filled celebration for the entire community.  The event will kick-off with a parade at 11:00 A.M., full of street and neighborhood floats and at least three marching bands.  High Street and Stradley Place will be filled with children’s activities and food trucks, including Amish Country Donuts, and musical acts such as Frankie & Ranke and The Usual Suspects & Repeat Offenders.  Additional entertainment, including a special act for children, are in the planning stages.

We hope you will join us!  Details to follow as they become available.