Strange Folk Festival

I can’t picture myself driving to O’Fallon, IL for a craft fair. So my basis for comparison for Strange Folk this year is not Strange Folk last year. It is a) Union Station normally and b) every other craft fair I’ve been to.
I have my opinions about the Strange Folk debacle, but I’ll just keep those to myself.
I personally loved having this festival in Union Station. The outdoors disgust me. Let me shop in peace in an indoor mall. THANK YOU. Plus, this mall is super airy and full of natural light, it’s like being outside without being outside. It’s even got a giant koi pond. What more can you ask for!!!
Lots of great vendors and hours of spending way, way, way too much money on shit I say I could have made myself but couldn’t in a million years.
Though I was grateful for food trucks, the options were limited and the half a gyro I ate I have regretted ever since in many forms.
Music, hipsters, ethnic food made from ethnic people from different continents than the ethnic food they are selling, crowds, port-​a-​potties, etc. What’s not to love?
I hope this becomes a regular thing. I have the hugest stiffy for St. Louis, and anytime something big like this comes to the city I pray to the St. Louis gods that they will succeed and stay. If Union Station were always full of local shops like this, I’d shop there at least once a month. Right now I shop there once a decade.

A couple of weeks ago, I somehow happened upon the website for the 9^th annual Strange Folk Festival. I had no idea what it was, but I was immediately intrigued by the cute website artwork that featured gnomes and various creatures chillin’ in the forest. I hope the artist doesn’t mind, but I have uploaded a snippet of the art here. :) I love it.
As I perused the website, I realized it was a craft festival. I don’t craft, but I appreciate those who do. The site described the festival as having «150 indie vendors, 8 bands, over 20 local restaurants, craft beer, and tons of creative exhibits and activities for kids.» I called to my husband, «We’re going to Illinois at the end of September!»
The festival was held at Community Park in O’Fallon, IL from 10:00 to 6:00 on September 27^th and 28^th. Admission and parking were free. At least, I presume parking was free. The website did not have any info on parking. The park has a lot, but as I approached the festival at around 11:00 AM on Sunday the 28^th, it was evident that the lot was full. People were parking on the streets in the surrounding neighborhood. Like dozens of other people, I parked in front of someone’s house. I was worried they wouldn’t be cool with that, but my husband pointed out that the homeowner had parked in his/​her own yard. :)
If you like handmade goods, this is the place for you. Vendors offered a variety of items that included artwork, jewelry, soap, clothing, greeting cards, handbags, scarves, hats, and decorative pillows. I was there for about 1.5 hours, but you could easily spend much more time at the festival if you stopped at every single booth or tent.
I found the atmosphere to be more craft-​y than hipsterish. However, I saw many items that were adorned with birds. Stuff always looks better when you put a bird on it. ;)
I only took three pictures while I was there, which I have uploaded in addition to the gnome artwork. Hopefully, this gives you an idea (a very small idea) of the types of items you might see at next year’s festival. The hooded cowl is from knotageek. The little dude is from Bill’s Retro Robots. The Daria pillow (the only purchase I made) is from More Me Know. I had to buy that Daria pillow. I was wearing combat boots and everything. It was destiny.
I didn’t eat at the festival, but by going there, I was introduced to some places that were unfamiliar to me. For example, I hadn’t heard of Urban Eats Café or Whisk: A Sustainable Bake Shop. Whisk was offering pumpkin pop-​tartlets, and I really wanted one. I really wanted a lot of things. The festival had Sweet Katie Bee’s cupcakes, kettle corn, cinnamon pecans, cookies, muffins, and ice cream from Iscream Cakes. I suppose I have a bit of a sweet tooth. :) Of course, they also had food other than desserts, which included BBQ, burgers, gyros, and selections from Hemingway’s Zen Garden (O’Fallon, IL).
Strange Folk is a great way to check out creative works from dozens of artists and to sample foods from local eateries. Though, I didn’t do that last part, I hope to visit the festival again next year and to perhaps stay a little longer.
By the way, despite my short visit and the fact that several of the vendors were under the shade of the many trees throughout the park, I somehow managed to get a slight sunburn. Be sure to wear sunscreen! I’m not the outdoorsy type, and I neglected to think about it.
P. S. If anyone from Strange Folk reads this, please consider providing links on the festival website to the pages for the various artists, crafters, and eateries that will be in attendance. I was unfamiliar with many of the vendors, and googling each one was a tiresome task.

I have been to the Strange Folk Festival before, but this year I was helping a vendor friend. This is a very well managed event. The city park employees keep the park clean, the trash cans were not overflowing, plenty of toilet paper in the restrooms, plenty of places to sit. Last year they added a beer truck, best idea ever. I think it helps keep the crowds, I would say 1 out of 2 people were walking around either drinking a beer or a glass of wine. 150 vendors fill the park and they never disappoint. People could find vintage clothing, jewelry, upcycled items and my friend had adult humor cards and magnets. This is festival should be on your to go list.

This year was my first time coming to Strange Folk. If you love craft fairs, this is your place. They were not exaggerating when they say they have over 150 booths. SO many booths, so MANY people. It was packed Parking is not too difficult, but it was crowded at 12 when I went. They had plenty of stuff for people of all ages. O’ Fallon park is beautiful: there is a full playground for kids with swings, a jungle gym, and plenty of stations to keep the kids busy. The fair itself had really interesting items for everyone: handmade soaps, guitars made out of boxes, jewelry, vintage clothing, organic teas, incense, perfume, knitted items, candles. Don’t forget to stop inside the pavilion, there are even more booths in there. And food of all kinds: greasy stuff, healthy stuff, baked goods, ice cream. Glad I finally made it.
And, on the getting lost in Illinois quotient: I made it there and back without getting turned around, so Missourians, don’t be afraid! Just use googlemaps — the directions were still accurate considering all the weekly highway and bridge closures going on.

I don’t know why I’ve never been to this festival until this year. Maybe the very strange promotional art? I thought it was going to be very hippie, and it was in a way, but it brought out a lot of people… and not all of them were hippies. I do love the idea though: arts and crafts through upcycled material… how much cooler is that?
Getting there is somewhat of a pain because Highway 50 narrows down to one lane each way when you get close to the park. Add to that Oktoberfests galore, and you have a very nice recipe for «traffic jam». Everyone parks everywhere, but surprisingly enough, parking wasn’t that big of a deal. It is really a family thing too. They have arts and crafts for the kids, indie bands playing, lots of picnic tables set up with the usual assortment of fair foods, an alpaca petting zoo, and of course, Girl Scouts selling cookies.
But the booths themselves are the showcase, and the media is quite varied, even though I heard a booth owner complain, «It is so hard nowadays to be original.» She was selling wire jewelry, so I guess I can see her point. And really, my favorite booths are really the unique ones like Beqi Clothing and Newberry Furniture. The Newberrys repurpose old wood for new stuff… their current thing consists of Adirondack chairs made from an old barn. And Beqi takes vintage clothing and changes it all around. she has quite the gift. The whole thing is pretty big, and it really does impress me that there are so many craftsters in the area.

I was excited to go to the Strange Folk Festival for the first time this Fall. I mean, the name hooked me and an alpaca petting zoo!!! My little hipster sister about cried because she was out of town that weekend. I was pretty excited too, I went to their website and checked out the artists that were going to be there because a lot if not all of them had Etsy pages. It rained lightly on the day I went, and it was cold, which wasn’t pleasant. It was really hit or miss with the art booths. Too many of the booths were hipster arts and crafts. Wow. A flattened beer bottle spoon rest. Not even a cool beer bottle. Meh. I know these are popular now at art fairs, and an artist has to make a living, but couldn’t you at least try to be a little artistic about it and find a cool bottle? But there were also some booths that I liked a lot. There’s a company from Chicago doing ceramics that I liked, and I ended up buying from them. There were some other booths I liked a lot, but I just felt like a lot of it was not impressive. The atmosphere is very, very hipster. There was a part of a pavilion set up for live blogging the event – no joke. And there were some pre-​teens running around, one dressed up as a ghost and the other ones were dress as Ghostbusters. They asked several people if they had seen any ghosts around, meaning the kid running around in a sheet. I think something was lost on me.