Nancy Alldredge has been helping facilitate the Riley Festival for roughly 40 years now. This year she’s serving as the Riley Festival board secretary, helping coordinate the 450-plus vendors who will set up along downtown Greenfield streets starting at 8 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 5.
GREENFIELD — The phone has been ringing off the hook at the Riley Festival office in downtown Greenfield this week, but Nancy Alldredge takes it all in stride.
After all, she’s been helping coordinate the local festival for roughly 40 years now.
“It’s always a hectic week,” said Alldredge, Riley Festival board secretary, as she manned the phones and chatted with vendors Tuesday afternoon.
The 54th annual Riley Festival takes place Oct. 5-8, with lots of traditional elements unfolding throughout the week.
The festival honors “the Hoosier poet” James Whitcomb Riley, who served as the national poet laureate after growing up in Greenfield, in a white house at 250 W. Main St. that now serves as part of the Riley Boyhood Home & Museum.
Just a block east of the home, the city’s historic downtown will soon be transformed as the annual festival blocks off the main thoroughfares of State and Main streets, otherwise known as U.S. 40 and State Road 9.
The streets will will shut down at midnight Wednesday night in preparation for hundreds of vendors to set up their wares Thursday morning before the festival officially opens at 5 p.m. that day.
Perhaps the festival’s most time-honored tradition is strolling, shopping and socializing among the booths, which will fan out from State and Main a block or two in all directions.
Alldredge said visitors will have plenty to peruse this year thanks to a sell-out crowd of vendors.
Each one of the festival’s 450 vendor spots have been claimed for the first time since COVID struck in 2020, she said.
“We normally have space for about 450, so we have at least that many, maybe more,” said Alldredge, who said this year’s festival will feature a record number of local vendors selling arts and crafts.
There were so many that that the festival board has devoted the Courthouse Plaza to mostly arts and crafts booths, while the flea market booths will remain on North Street east of State Road 9.
The festival’s most popular food vendors will also be there, she said, including Red Post noodles, Iceberg ice cream and Wagler’s Amish baked goods.
Allredge said between 65,000 and 70,000 visitors are expected to descend upon the city to check out the offerings and sample an assortment of festival food.
While the festival is a beacon for visitors it’s also a time-honored tradition for local residents, who embrace the traditions that have made the iconic festival so near and dear to many since it was first held in 1969, although the city’s celebration of Riley’s Oct. 7 birthday dates back to 1911.
The annual Parade of Flowers returns this Friday, Oct. 6 in full bloom, as hundreds of third-graders from the Greenfield-Central and Southern Hancock school systems will be bussed downtown to participate in laying flowers at the feet of the Riley statue in front of the Hancock County courthouse.
Students will line up just south of the Pennsy Trail on State Street, before heading north towards the courthouse at 12:30 p.m.
The next day the Riley Festival parade takes to the streets at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 7, starting at Greenfield-Central High School, heading south on Broadway Street, then east on Main Street, before ending at Riley Park.
Greenfield-Central High School’s marching band will lead the flower parade but won’t attend the Saturday’s parade due to a competition that day.
Live music has become an integral part of the festival, with a growing lineup of both local and regional acts taking to the stage throughout the four-day event.
Each year the festival theme is based on one of Riley’s poems. This year’s theme is “Nine Little Goblins.” See related coverage on page C1 for a closer look at how the Riley Boyhood Home & Museum is honoring the poet this year.
