For many, spring means the ability to pick-your-own fruits – filling your fridge with baskets full of blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries. If you haven’t gotten your fill yet of the latter, this is for you: the Pasadena Strawberry Festival returns to the Houston area this weekend with four days full of floats, parades, food, and fun for the whole family!
Believe it or not, the festival traces back to 1900. Following the hurricane in Galveston, American Red Cross founder, Clara Barton, sent local farmers 1.5 million strawberry plants as a way for them to rebuild. Since then, Pasadena has become the “Strawberry Capital of the South” launching its first festival in 1974.
Today, the Pasadena Strawberry Festival stages a vibrant array of live musicians, processions, and other festivities over the course of four days drawing over 50,000 attendants with above 500 volunteers.
Featured events include the barbecue cook-off competition, beauty pageants, carnival, kidzone, mud volleyball, and mutton bustin’. Another crowd favorite is the annual attempt to make the world’s largest strawberry shortcake. Though the festival has fallen short of beating the world record, it’s not without trying. In 2014, organizers built a whopping 21,578-pound, 2,073-square-feet shortcake.
Yes, you will also be able to try some.
This year’s concert lineup includes performances by Drew Balridge, Jake Bush, Clay Walker, Payton Howie, Scotty McCreery. The festival will also feature the finals of the local Pasadena Idol competition on Friday, May 16.
Tickets to the Pasadena Strawberry Festival are now available through the event website. Tickets are priced at $15 online and $20 at the gate.
The festival takes place from Thursday, May 15 to Sunday, May 18 at the Pasadena Convention Center and Municipal Fairgrounds located at 7902 Fairmont Parkway in Pasadena.