Vintage Spotlight: Vintage Expos, Fairs & Festivals

Can you believe it's already March? With Spring Break beginning or ending depending on your neck of the woods, it's the perfect time to start planning for those spring/summer vacays and events. Outdoor festival season is about to start, so why not plan to attend your first (or next) vintage event? I did some scrounging around the 'Net and found some vintage events coming up this year, some big and some small. Of course, this is by no means a comprehensive list of all of the vintage-themed events going on but I thought these would be fun to attend. Let's get started!

First up is The Festival of Vintage, held this year on the 26th and 27th of April. Here's a little trailer video of the festival that the festival's contributors put together:

This two day festival has a constant lineup of live acts and DJ's playing hits from the '30s-'60s, a lineup of classic cars on display, exhibits by different vintage collectors, vintage crafting and creating workshops that you can meet vintage crafters at or even make something for yourself, fashion parades, free dance lessons, and vintage hair & beauty experts on hand. I think this sounds like a great festival to go to. Too bad I don't live in England. 



Fete Paradiso is a traveling festival that will be kicking off July 13th on Governors Island in New York City.

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This is a really interesting sort of vintage festival in that it focuses on and celebrates vintage carnival rides and carousels and is debuting this summer. I've never heard of a festival quite like this one before. This festival is good for the entire family and will be operational every weekend from July 13th to September 29th. Another good thing about this festival is that it is also available for private events. I think that sounds like so much fun. Admission is free. The pictures are great, so I strongly suggest going to check out the gallery.  


The Vintage Band Festival in Northfield, Minnesota, isn't having a festival this year due to not meeting donation goals, but I had to feature it anyway because it's a shame that they didn't. The festival is located in a historic town in Minnesota and had a lot of cool events lined up, judging from last year's festival. 

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What I like about this festival is that some of the bands participating in the festival sometimes wear 19th century clothing and a lot of the festival-goers do as well. Give me any excuse to wear something from another time and I'm on it. Live bands will be on hand to play vintage tunes throughout the evenings of the festival, there will be a vaudeville show, a cotillion will take place that Saturday (I'm so jealous!!) a vintage baseball game will be played, and there will also be a Battle of the Bands and concert afterward. I'd donate in a second if I had the money to do so. The next anticipated festival won't be until 2016. Le sigh. 



The Retro Festival will be taking place August 8-10th in Maidenhead, England. 

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First of all, I love this ad. This seems like it's going to be a jam-packed festival, with all kinds of events centered around the '40s-'60s. Three live stages of retro music will be played throughout the festival, and different kinds of retro vehicles and airplanes will be on display. And what's a vintage festival without some fashion? Larger and independent vintage brands, both authentic and repro I'm assuming, will be showing off their products and there's even 2 public sites for camping. Since a lot of festivals don't let the participants camp, I really like that you can do that with this festival. 



The Anjou Velo Vintage festival will be taking place from June 28-29 in Saumur, France.

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What I like about this festival is that it coincides with a cycling event, with cyclists from both the past and present. I wonder if it'll involve retro-styled bikes. There are a number of shows at this festival, like street performers, jugglers and magicians, just to name a few. The Retro Fair is a large exhibit specializing in cycling, fashion and home decor, where different exhibitors, vendors and specialists show off their products. There's also a vintage flea market with different antique goodies for sale, which I thought was cool. An entertainment program is on the way as well, so I wonder what they've got lined up. 




The Bay Harbor Foundation Vintage Car & Boat Festival will be taking place June 19th-22nd in Bay Harbor, Michigan.

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What I love about this vintage vehicle festival is that it includes boats. For some reason, I never considered boats when thinking about retro vehicles. I always limited it to cars, bikes and planes. I'm not a big fan of water equipment other than floaties and life preservers lol, but I would like to see how the makeup of boats has changed over time. This festival gives out prizes in different award classes for the various types of cars and boats being entered in the festival. Another thing that I like is that the awards ceremony caps itself off with a drive-by for the winners to show off their prizes. I think this would be a fun festival to hit up. 






The Manhattan Vintage Clothing Show is actually right around the corner, on the 28th and 29th of this month in New York City.

What I like about this show is that it doesn't seem like your regular clothing expo where you get to just buy clothes and go home. This show also displays clothing and antique textiles over the past 100 years, something you can use as inspiration like the other designers who attend the show. There is also a gentlemen's vintage show, where vintage materials, clothing items and accessories will be displayed in a number of booths. The gentlemen's show is at the end of October.



The Brimfield Antique Show in Brimfield, Massachusetts has its first showing of the year May 13th through the 18th. 

This is the official Brimfield logo as the Antique Show doesn't have one of its own. 

Three times a year, Brimfield opens up a 21 booth exhibit so people can show off their antique goods. The fee to get in is really affordable; we're talking $5 or $7. This site is more extensive and will tell you a little more about the different lodging options in the area that you can stay at during the show as well as some of the dealers participating in it. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I only recently started getting into antique furniture and as a result just realized that there are entire shows and expos dedicated to such things. I'm no expert in the area by any means, but an actual antique show sounds like a lot of fun to attend, if for no other reason than to be able to see just how old the pieces are. 



The Vintage Fashion Expo takes place a few times a year throughout California; there'll be one next weekend in San Francisco. 

The show takes place 4-5 times a year in either LA or San Fran and has been around for 30 years. Pieces from as early as the 18th century to as late as 1990 have been displayed at this expo, with 50 dealers featuring all kinds of vintage items, from clothing to memorabilia to jewelry, at their booths. I am dying to see some true blue 18th century pieces that aren't repro up close. I would have an absolute ball here. There's a page of the exhibitors and some of them have their own websites so you can go get a peek at some of those goodies that might make it to the expo. 





I don't believe there is a Gilded Festival this year, but I had to feature it anyway because I would have loved to go. 

This festival takes place in Prussia, PA and celebrates Victorian and steampunk in a three day extravaganza of 18th century fabulousness. This would be a great festival to attend if you're trying to learn about the steampunk or Victorian eras, as there are different presentations sprinkled throughout the festival on fashion, culture and literature of the times. Three rooms full of vendors were on hand at last year's festival with different kinds of rare items and throughout the festival, musical acts will be taking the stage to perform. The Gilded Festival is intended to be a holiday-themed festival and it kicks that off by having an opening dinner, called "The Orphan's Dinner," where attendees can share in a huge meal together. Another positive of this festival is that you get to dress in your mechanical steampunk costumery, which I love. It would make my dreams come true if there was a Gilded Festival this year and I got to attend. 



Next we go back across the pond for the Atomic Festival in Northamptonshire on the 3rd and 4th of May. 

I really hate that I live in America when it comes to stuff like this. It seems as though there is a larger vintage community and more public events dedicated to the world of vintage in England than there are in America. I could be wrong, but when I was researching events for this post, there had to have been at least 3 UK events in comparison to 1 US event. Moving on though, the Atomic Festival celebrates mid-century vintage with 23 mid-century themed bands providing tunes as the background to classic car displays and drag racing, rollerskating, a beauty parlor, a vintage marketplace and a boot sale, just to name a few. A boot sale is where you can buy, sell or even trade your vintage items, and I hadn't heard of that before so that's pretty cool. One of my modern-day vintage idols, Bernie Dexter, will also be on hand with the Atomic Bombshells during the festival. Go check the link out; this sounds like it's going to be an absolute blast. 





The Twinwood Festival, another England-based festival, will be taking place this year from the 23rd to the 25th of August. 

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I follow Radio Twinwood on Twitter, and I'm putting it out there now that if you love big band music and the like, go give them a listen. I listened to it for awhile a few days ago while I was gaming and I swear it was 2 of the most relaxing hours I can remember in recent memory. I love big band. So when I stumbled across this festival on Google earlier, I had to put it in here. Apparently there's also a Mr. and Mrs. Vintage UK, and they'll both be at this festival, which celebrates music and dance from the '30s to the '50s. In addition to the air displays, dancing, and museums that will be part of the festivities, there will also be comedy and burlesque acts. I've always wanted to see a good burlesque act. You can also camp out here throughout the weekend. Check the link so you can see the entire weekend lineup. 



While I was looking for events, I also found some pages that detailed several events taking place within the year and a couple of sweet events that I wasn't able to find details for. Unless you're planning a trip to or already live in London, though, two of these links probably won't have as much significance. They do to me though, as at least one of them is making its way to my bucket list. lol 


RetroFest--What I really like about this concept is that it helps to revitalize vintage music from the '60s and '70s by allowing musicians to come together and recreate classic festival lineups. I think that's such an innovative concept and allows us to hear some tunes from that time period as well, which is great. I haven't gotten any information on any Fests for this year, but I had to include it somewhere on this list anyway.


Haddon Events 2014 Fair Dates--Haddon Events is a UK based business that helps organize and promote vintage events. This link is a list of all events by Haddon Events for the year, starting with February. 


UK Vintage Fairs--This is a pretty thorough list of different vintage-themed events going on in the UK throughout the year. It lists the event, the location, the theme of the event and the venue in which it'll be taking place. Again....really pissed that I live in America sometimes. LOL


Vintage Festival--This is actually its own festival, but like Haddon Events, Vintage by Hemingway also helps plan and promote other UK vintage-themed festivals and events. This page has some of those events on the link I provided, I don't know if they overlap with the events listed in the previous link or not. Each of the events on the page has its own section, so you'll be able to go find out more about it. 


US Flea Markets & Vintage Fairs--This is far from being a full list of the various flea markets and vintage fairs going on here in the US, but the author detailed 5 of her favorites in this post. I didn't see anything quite on the level of the UK's Retro or Atomic Festivals; most of these seem to be flea markets with a focus on antiques rather than actual events. 

I hope you've enjoyed this month's Spotlight! This was actually a post that I thought about doing last year shortly before I took my hiatus; it was sitting in my 'drafts' folder until last week. When I went down for the count recently, I figured there'd be no better time to get to it, and here we are. I haven't forgotten about January or February's Vintage Spotlights and they're on the way. I'm still not at 100% just yet but I believe the worst of whatever chest cold this was is over, so I'll be resuming my catch-up on posts. Anyway, if you're going to be attending a vintage fair or event this summer, let me know in the comments! Were there any in this list that you'd like to attend?