Yankee Peddler Festival
Yankee Peddler Festival
News Release
(September 2008)
The Yankee Peddler Festivals:
Faraway Fun Close to Home
With the cost of jet fuel and gasoline these days, the thought of traveling afar may seem quite out of the question. But you would be wrong because, fortunately, a unique world of beauty and fun awaits you with at most one tank of gas and a very reasonable admission charge. Not only will you find all-day entertainment in a lovely outdoor setting, but also discover a world that is as far away as 200 years ago. Throw in exquisite art, a multitude of demonstrations, and some of the best outdoor fare found anywhere....and you have the 36th Yankee Peddler Festival and its contemporary sibling, the 5th Yankee Peddler Today Festival, held together at Clay’s Park Resort in Canal Fulton, Ohio.
The Yankee Peddler Festival has garnered Number One ratings in national circles for good reason: there’s simply no place like it in size and quality. The Festival takes place over 75 acres of dales and glens with six stages for a wide variety of music, theater, and even puppets (for kids of all ages!). Those who prefer not to stop for a stage performance in order to wander the wooded paths flanked by rustic shops built by master artists and crafters, will still encounter even more musical groups, singers, and magicians all wandering about too. They will run across the town criers, the militia, the mountain men, the wagon train, and even Professor “Z” who ascends the heavens in his hot-air balloon. There is so much to see and do that many visitors spend the entire weekend at the Yankee Peddler.
And the quality of what you see, do, hear, and taste has no parallel. Entertainers are accomplished professionals, known well beyond the Midwest. This is the most select assemblage of artists and crafters to be found anywhere. (There will be over 250 this year.) Not only will they offer unique items of their own making for sale, but they also will make those items right there on the spot for you. And there are the apple fritters and many other delights from a lengthy and savory menu of delicious dishes made over open fires.
The Yankee Peddler Today Festival is only in its fifth year, but it is growing in leaps and bounds, all because this festival of contemporary music, art, and food is inspired by the same tradition of excellence and quality. Here you will be able to see and hear nationally-known musicians. Over 70 artists and crafters will be working to produce modern counterparts to the traditional items found in the original Festival. And wood-fired pizzas and Mexican fare will be on a varied menu that also includes wine and beer tasting.
Visitors whose budgets face inflationary pressures — and that’s most of us! — will find that the original artwork and crafts offered by the Yankee Peddlers make truly unique and affordable gifts, especially for Christmas. Prices are very moderate, and you can be sure that no other item like it exists anywhere else. Whether you are looking for a special piece of jewelry, a unique ceramic or hand carved, inlaid bowl, a leather belt, a flute or dulcimer, a stained glass window or fused glass candleholder, wildlife art or abstract wall-hanging, a decorated gourd or a garden ornament, or a handwoven throw, you will find it — and much, much more.
In keeping with the spirit of fighting inflation by providing a great deal at a reasonable cost, visitors can take in both Festivals for the price of one admission. Admission at the gate is $9.00 for adults; $8.00 for seniors, and $2.50 for children (ages 6 to 11). Children under six are admitted free. And there are no hidden charges for parking; it is free as well.
It all takes place on the weekends of September 6 – 7, 13 – 14, and 20 – 21, at Clay’s Park Resort in Canal Fulton, Ohio. (Clay’s Park Resort is readily accessible from major interstate highways in Ohio.)
Featuring Arvel Bird Artist of the Year Native American Music Awards-2007
“Best in the Nation” Sunshine Artist Magazine
Featured in Rand- McNally Ultimate Road Atlas & Vacation Guide
Featured on “That’s Life with Robin Swoboda”
Music This Year at the Yankee Peddler Festival!
The 2008 Yankee Peddler Festival will feature the following music groups: Fare Passage, Blue Eagle String Band, The Rounders, the Heritage Minstrels, Shadybrook String Band, Next Best Thing, Touch of Spring, River Crossing, Northern Cross, the Hammered Music Duo, Windridge, and the North Coast Pipe Band. With the exception of Next Best Thing (who will metamorphose into an electric blues band in Yankee Peddler Today on the third weekend), all these groups will perform all three weekends. The Sonshine Cloggers will dance up a storm every day. Jim Ruble will solo on bagpipes, and Brad Beers will be our wandering balladeer. Catch our roving magician, Jania Taylor.
Music This Year at the Yankee Peddler Today Festival!
The 2008 Yankee Peddler Today stages will feature Arvel Bird, Denis DeVito & Cats on a Holiday, The Next Best Thing, and Billy Matsumoto. Arvel Bird, fiddler and flutist who fuses Native American traditions with jazz and world rock and the 2007 Native American Artist of the Year, will perform on September 6-7. He will be joined by long-time Yankee Peddler, flute maker and flutist Michael Searching Bear. Denny DeVito and his Cats on a Holiday will bring their eclectic rock to visitors on September 13-24. The Next Best Thing, led by Al Bonnis, will delight visitors with their blues and blues-rock on September 20-21. Billy Matsumoto, juggler and magician who has performed on national television, will be on stage all three weekends.
News Release
(September 2007)
Yankee Peddler Festival featured on
That's Life
(Cleveland's Fox 8)
Look for a rerun of That's Life with Robin Swoboda on Cleveland's Fox 8. The show was filmed on location at Yankee Peddler on Saturday, September 8, 2007. Join Robin as she travels around Yankee Peddler. Then make plans to come see us in 2008.
Click here to see a list of who Robin visited at Yankee Peddler.
News Release
(September 2006)
Yankee Peddler Festival featured on Good Company
Good Company on Cleveland's NBC affiliate WKYC Channel 3 featured a segment which showcased the Yankee Peddler Festival in 2006. The segment was part of the "Cheap Date" series that Geoff Short and Dave Tarbert produce for the show. Click on this LINK to view the video (courtesy of our good friends at Good Company).
News Release
(September 2004)
Yankee Peddler Festival: Building on the Past for a New Tomorrow
For thirty-one years each September, the Yankee Peddler Festival has been synonymous with unmatched excellence as a family event that blends art, crafting, great food, and entertainment. Its fame has spread across the United States and beyond, and it has been privileged to have been featured in many quality tour magazines and publications, including the Rand-McNally series of Vacation Guides. It has been so successful because of the superior quality of its artists, crafters, entertainers, and foods. But it has also been so successful because it is so authentic, permitting visitors to truly step back into the colonial and pioneer world to experience the essence of simplicity, beauty, and old-fashioned fun.
Now the organizers of this much-imitated event have announced a major expansion beginning with the 2004 Festival. As always, visitors will be able to visit and enjoy the colonial world of the original Yankee Peddlers who traversed early Ohio from 1776-1825. Beginning this September, though, visitors will also be able to enter and immerse themselves in a second "world" that will coexist with the traditional Yankee Peddlers at Clay's Park Resort in Canal Fulton, Ohio. The world of "today's" Yankee Peddler will be populated by contemporary artists, crafters, and entertainers. In this new world, the Yankee Peddlers who set up their shops will be artists and handcrafters whose art and crafts are modem in their technological foundations -such as photography-or in their style, such as contemporary jewelry and pottery. Just as their colonial counterparts will continue to do, the contemporary artists and crafters will demonstrate how they transform raw materials into inspired finished pieces. Entertainment in this new world of today's Yankee Peddler will reflect the contemporary theme. The organizers promise that this new world of today's Yankee Peddler will be as relaxed, easy-going, pleasant, and informative as its parallel colonial world.
Asked about the upcoming expansion of the Yankee Peddler Festival, Festival spokeswoman Betty Cajka commented: "The Yankee Peddler Festival has been a trendsetter among shows in a number of ways. It has contributed mightily to the arts and crafts community's success and vitality. It has brought art and handcrafting to large numbers of people through its unique vision and re-creation of pioneer America. And it has created a very popular family event that is a true extravaganza, not merely another arts and crafts show. Now we wish to build upon those trends ourselves by bringing a new, contemporary group of arts and crafts into the mix, arts and crafts that have been outside the universe of the original pioneer period. It will all be an even greater extravaganza than before."
Perhaps best of all, visitors will be able to stroll around and enjoy both worlds for the price of visiting just one. The organizers have no plans to charge separate admission for each parallel Yankee Peddler universe on the grounds. They will continue their policy of making this special event as accessible as possible to all. So, for the price of a movie, visitors will be able to enjoy both traditional and contemporary worlds of the Yankee Peddler.
Spanning the "14th colony" (as the original Yankee Peddler Festival has been called) to the modern world economy, the Yankee Peddler Festival will literally bring alive not just one world, but two worlds of pleasure, fun, and unique beauty come September 6 - 7, 13 -14, and 20 -21. Mark it on your calendars! The Yankee Peddler Festival is going to be even greater than ever, an event we can assure you has never before been seen in this region- or anywhere.
