Many favorite events return this year to celebrate the season
While September is always a busy month for fall festivals and events in Southwest Ohio, October brings with it cooler weather and more fun events for families. After a year off, many Miami Valley residents are looking forward to celebrating the season with some of the very best festivals and events of the year.
The Ohio Renaissance Festival has been a Southwest Ohio fall staple for more than 25 years. It opened for the first time in 1990 in Harveysburg, just east of Waynesville, and has grown substantially. Today the 35-acre site offers families a taste of what life was like in a 16th century English Village. Though the festival opens each year on Labor Day weekend, it continues through the end of October. New this year, the event is being extended an extra week for “Tricks or Treats” Oct. 30-31, and the festival has added three additional stages of entertainment (18 total), a new jousting show, the “Wheel of Death” balancing act and the Cincinnati Barbarian—another full armor show.
Don’t forget to check out the other events happening this fall on the Renfest grounds, including the Brimstone Haunt with its four Halloween-themed attractions, through Oct. 30, and the second annual Yuletide Village Season of Lights, beginning Nov. 26.
Dayton’s oldest American-German club, the Liederkranz-Turner, will once again be hosting its Oktoberfest, featuring authentic homemade German food, music and beverages, Oct. 2. Food and drinks will also be available for curbside carryout.
Through Oct. 31, take the family to Young’s Jersey Dairy in Yellow Springs for its Fall Farm Pumpkin Fun. Enjoy some pumpkin treats, Cowvins’ Corny corn maze and, of course, Young’s delicious ice cream. While you’re there, check out the new farm building, which owner Dan Young says has “exceeded my expectations.” The 22,000-square-foot building will have expanded seating for 260 people inside and outside will be a “Cow Patty-O” for an additional 250 seats. Don’t forget to take a wagon ride to the pumpkin patch, where you can pick your own to take home!
Oct. 2-3, drive over to Spring Valley for the annual Potato Festival where you can snack on festival food and check out handmade crafts and other vendors. This festival, dubbed the annual “potato party,” is packed with all kinds of potato treats, from soup to candy. There will also be live entertainment and carnival rides.
In Waynesville, the annual Fall Fest continues through the end of October and features the “Splash Landing Expeditions” ride, Jake’s 18 Hole Mini Golf course and a smaller nine-hole course, Water Wars slingshot game, a “not so spooky” walking trail and a ghost town village.
If you are a hayride fan, don’t miss a visit to Windmill Farm Market in Springboro. Riders head out to the pumpkin fields on wooden wagons that go through the woods and mud. There are public and private (by reservation) rides available, a farm market, unlimited access to farm animals and play areas, a pumpkin bounce pad and a cornstalk tunnel. The farm is open through Oct. 31.
