Unique Aspects of the Kutztown Festival 

CRAFTS  

Watch, and often work with, 200 of the nation’s finest juried craftsmen demonstrating and explaining their skills. Interaction, particularly for kids, is encouraged. 

Hot! Hot! Hot! Molten glass blown and shaped into works of art at eleven hundred degrees by our Glass Blowers 

The Nations last 3 remaining professional hex sign painters are all at the Festival – Eric Claypoole, Bill Schuster and Ivan Hoyt. 

Eric Claypoole is the last hex sign and barn star painter who still climbs and paints the hex signs directly onto barns… the same technique used on PA Dutch barns for the last 200 years. 

Nationally renowned Redware potter Ned Foltz is just one of many traditional potters who demonstrate their unique styles and techniques of their craft. 

Duane Wendling of Kutztown is just one of many woodworkers who make the finest handcrafted period reproductions of traditional Pennsylvania Dutch furniture. 

Jon Bond is a traditional PA Dutch folkart painter whose works are collected internationally. You can watch Jon and many other folk art painters practice their unique form of Americana art at the Festival. 

Brenda Boyer of Kutztown grows her own flowers, then uses them to create her dried flower arrangements with a Victorian, “days of past” flair. 

Traditional timber framing techniques come alive with our old fashioned barn raising. See the timber framers turn rough logs into a finely finished building using traditional hand tools.  

ENTERTAINMENT 

6 Stages of traditional folk music, dancing, and diverse entertainment including Storytelling, Tall Tales, and a wide variety of PA Dutch educational entertainment, such as PA Dutch Dialect lessons, history, religion and other cultural aspects that make the PA Dutch so unique. 

4 Generations of hoedown dancers, the Lester Miller Family Dancers 

Enjoy the sounds of two 19^th century “impromptu” brass bands, so often a part of any community celebration.  

Children, and parents too, can ride the last remaining horse powered carousel actively working in the country.  

The Fourth of July parade at the Kutztown Folk Festival has now been going on for 59 years, and has been named by many as “The Hokiest Parade In America.” Come see why. 
 

FOOD 

Visit our traditional summer kitchen and see full meals being cooked on a woodstove, and totally prepared by hand. You can even sample some of the “good old PA Dutch cooking” 

Follow the aromas to our 19^th Century outdoor stone bake oven and watch Gary Hertzog bake traditional round bread in the rebuilt 200 year old structure. 

Viola Miller first introduced the world to funnel cake 58 years ago at the Kutztown Folk Festival. Susanne Sharadin continues the tradition with this classic PA Dutch treat, making them to order and served piping hot!   

Watch the day long process to roast and slow-cook a 900 pound ox over an open fire. Better yet, eat some for lunch!  

You’ll find pig snout, scrapple, sausages, tongue, pickled pigs feet and lots of other unique Dutch “treats” at the Festival Farmers Market. Verna Dietrich and her family keep these old fashioned traditions alive and well, and serve them up to the visitors of the Kutztown Folk Festival! 
 

FOLKLIFE 

See our collection of some of the Nation’s finest horse drawn wagons and sleighs, including Amish and Mennonite buggies, the PA Dutch Conestoga wagon, and even a very rare sleigh hearse.  

Experience a traditional Amish wedding, Mennonite hymn singing, and traditional church services in PA Dutch dialect.  

Experience the quiet power of a 19^th century Hot-steam Tractor, one of the last remaining tractors of it’s kind still in operation. 

Bail straw, shuck some corn, bag barley and work up an appetite at one of our many active farm displays and demonstrations. 

Take a tour through our traditional four square herb garden, the family market for herbs, food and flowers. Learn the many traditional uses of the plants that grow all around us.  

Be careful raising your hand at our daily country auction, or you could be the proud owner of … an antique… who knows what it is?  

Learn about the past generation’s old medicine, beliefs, and cures, as well as many of the folk beliefs and tales that served as the rural community’s guideposts to survival and a better life. 

Who are the PA Dutch? Find out more at our Seminar tent, where experts spend the day talking about what makes us different, and why have we remained so unique, even after being Americans for almost 300 years… 

Be a part of the jury as you witness the reenactment of Suzanna Cox’s prosecution and hanging, the last woman ever executed in Pennsylvania, and whose death brought about the American Appeals System, the cornerstone of our American Legal Rights today. 

See a PA Dutch rifle being made and shot. Did you know that the Kentucky Longrifle was actually first the Pennsylvania Longrifle, and Daniel Boone, born and raised in Berks County, Pennsylvania made it famous when he took it to Kentucky?  
 

KIDS 

Kids keep going back to play and jump in the giant hay stack and traditional hay maze. After all these years, there is still something special about shoving hay down your brother’s shirt…  

Children can paint a part of our giant PA Dutch mural, with hex signs, barns, animals, and all the things that make up a farm, leaving their handiwork as a part of this wonderful picture of traditional family farm life  

Kids can actually try their hand at making cider, apple butter, sauerkraut, soap, candles, and a variety of other foods and notions of the 19^th century. 

Without a doubt, the favorite place for kids is feeding and watching the animals at Noah’s World Petting Zoo, which features not only traditional farm animals, but a variety of not so usual ones, as well. 

One entire stage is dedicated to Children, featuring puppet shows, kids, sing-alongs, story telling, and a variety of other unique children’s activities.  

QUILTS 

Visit America’s largest Quilt Sale, featuring over 2,000 juried American made Quilts. 

Purchase one of the top 20 Prize Winning Quilts at the Annual Quilt Auction, where record setting prices have often been set for unbelievably beautiful quilts at this exciting and fast paced event, always  on the 2^nd Saturday of the Festival at the Main Stage.  

You can learn to quilt, and add your quilted square to the Festival’s Visitors Quilt; one being made every year entirely by visitors, and displayed yearly for you to see your addition to this wonderful piece of folk artwork year after year.