The North Quabbin Garlic & Arts Festival turns 25 on Sept. 30 – Oct 1. The all-volunteer committee, 100 exhibitors, and over 50 performers and presenters are excited to welcome you! We thought we’d offer some fun behind the scenes history and facts.

The festival was started by five neighbors (artists and farmers) and 20 bucks each over a summer potluck dinner in 1998.

The first festival was held in 1999 on a back field in the woods at Seeds of Solidarity, two weeks after a hurricane.

Currently, more than 30 people make up the festival committee — all volunteer, all still friends after all these years, powered by love, magic, hard work, and dedication.

Festival year two and onward has been held at Dorothy Forster’s historic farm. Dory’s father used to deliver fresh milk to the local schools.

Year one there were 10 exhibitors and 600 attendees. Now there are more than 100 artists, farm and food vendors, and upward of 8,000 attendees.

Our youngest exhibitor started when they were 9. Our eldest is now 96.

Every exhibitor contributes to a set up or cleanup day, or makes a meal for one of these crews. This unique model keeps exhibitor fees low and builds community. Each year exhibitors collectively contribute about 400 hours to help create the festival, along with countless hours contributed by organizers.

In addition, more than 150 people volunteer the festival weekend.

Community groups can help with parking in exchange for a donation from the festival to their cause. We’ve had high school sports teams, motorcycle clubs, theater groups, a prison birth project, college service organizations and more.

The festival produces only two large bags of trash each year for about 8,000 people.

Each year, more than 150 big bags of compostable materials are transformed into fertile soil at Clearview Compost in Orange. Over the festival years, this equates to 200 yards of finished compost, or over 10 dump trucks of rich compost for gardens, not garbage.

The first music stage was a hastily built platform of pallets. The second was haybales on a trailer. There are now three performance areas. Committee members built all stages as well as the dining area tables, all of local or repurposed wood. The largest stage is built on a foundation of local black locust piers.

There are over 50 performances and free workshops for attendees over the festival weekend. Plus a free kids ar -making tent. And free drinking water for all.

The most garlic cloves eaten by a contestant in the raw garlic eating contest is 48. One of our top winners over the years was breastfeeding a child at the time (a very healthy child)!

Over 25 years, millions of dollars in exhibitor sales have been made at the festival. These directly support the livelihoods of local artists, farmers, and food producers, and boost the local economy while circulating within our region.

Festival T-shirts are U.S. made and the annual design is done by area artists with the most frequent designer being local tattoo artist Mike Williams.

A garlic cookbook with recipes from our chef tent, and collected writings featuring spoken word stage performers, are among the festival publications.

A solar electric system helps to power the festival music stage. In our electric vehicle tent, experience electric cars, trucks and bikes.

The festival is free to families who receive EBT, WIC, or ConnectorCare, and free for kids. This year we cut the weekend general admission from $10 to $5 to celebrate our 25th.

The festival has never had any corporate or business sponsors.

The festival has donated more than $60,000 in mini-grants to local groups and organizations that promote food and farms, climate resilience, the arts, and health and wellness. We’ve also made several no-interest loans to cooperatively run businesses. We recently donated $5,000 to support two regional farm relief efforts after 2023 flooding devastated crops and livelihoods.

For more behind the scenes and everything to be found on the festival scene, visit www.garlicandarts.org.

Deb Habib lives in Orange and is a festival co-founder and committee member, along with 30 of her favorite people ever.