After a year off due to the pandemic, the 55th Annual Tremont Turkey Festival is returning this weekend.
The Festival kicked off at 4 p.m. Thursday, with the merchant's day activities, and ends Sunday with the Turkey Festival Parade.
Michele Garey, publicity chair for the festival, said that only in the last few weeks were changes made to have the festival return to some sort of normalcy like years past.
“We start planning our festival every year around January and February, and at that point, we didn’t really know what our world would look like in June,” she said. “Initially we were planning on having an all drive-thru festival. So we were going to find a way to do turkey no matter what.”
Illinois moves to full reopening today (Friday). Garey said that with approval and assistance from the health department, this year’s festival will look fairly normal.
“Definitely expect a safe festival, we work with the health department and if we are making changes they have to go along in order to issue our permits. So we are working closely with them,” she said. “But really, I mean we are going to be a fairly normal festival.”
This year’s festival will include food, performers, carnival rides, and various other activities. For a full list of events and schedules, visit the Turkey Festival website.
