West Side Nut Club Fall Festival in Evansville Indiana

The West Side Nut Club Fall Festival is a week long carnival held the first full week in October every year in Evansville, Indiana. About 5 blocks of a four lane city street are closed to traffic for the week. Reported by some to be second in size only to Mardi Gras; Evansville, Indiana's West Side Nut Club Fall Festival offers parades each year, including and pet parade and a lighthouse parade featuring lighthouses made by children. There are also two stages that are full each night with talent contests and live local bands. The festival is open each day until lunch and winds down about 10 pm CST.

There is a festival king and queen crowned each year who are students from the local area. In addition to the other fun activities, there is also a first aid area with an ambulance nearby, city and county law enforcement on site. The lost and found is a great location to agree to meet up with people if you get separated. Parking is offered for a fee by nonprofit organizations who have space in parking lots and parks around the area. If you don't mind walking, street parking is available but don't plan on parking close.

The crowds at the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival are much larger at night when the talent contests and bands are performing. Students are out of school and some families go to the Fall Festival to eat dinner, among other activities. All of the games and rides are open from 2 pm CST until the park closes so the crowds are very large in the evening.

There are over 375 food and drink items served daily in 126 booths that are owned and run by local nonprofit organizations. They use the Fall Festival as a fundraiser for their group. Standard festival food like hot dogs, corn dogs, hamburgers, popcorn, cotton candy and more is available but the real draw is to have something interesting or unusual that will draw a crowd. There is no end to the odd food items and no limit to what someone will deep fry, dip in chocolate or cover with cheese. A couple of the stranger items offered are Icky Licky's (suckers with a bug inside), Scorpion Pops, BBQ Salad and Deep Fried Butter Sticks (yes, it really is a stick of butter deep fried).

There is a special game and ride area for younger children that allows them to participate in everything that the rest of the crowd is but more safely. Parents and other adults are allowed in the area to help their children with the games and getting them to each of the rides. The kid's area is set away from the larger area so it's easy to find and the kid's are easier to keep track of in the park.

The cost is a little less than the main park as well, there is one snack booth in the kid's area but to find any of the other types of food offered, families must go out into the four city blocks of food booths. The kid's area was a great addition to the park many years ago and allows parents with smaller children to enjoy going to the Fall Festival

No festival would be complete without carnival games and the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival is no different. There are a wide variety of skill and chance games available on this area. Most prizes are stuffed animals that vary in size but other prizes include:

• T-shirts

• Goldfish

• Posters

• Mirrored pictures

• Basketballs

• Hats

• Various trinkets

This is a popular area for teenagers to try to impress each other with their skills and impress girls by winning them stuffed toys. There are rides mixed in and among the games so it does get very crowded and noisy of an evening.

One of the biggest draws to the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival in Evansville, Indiana are the rides. The rides vary in intensity from a slow ride on the ferris wheel to the wild ride of the Ring of Fire. Each ride has a height limit that is strictly enforced and rides are checked daily before passengers can get on them. Smaller rides like the swings and the Tilt-o-Whirl are in the main part of the park amongst the carnival games.

The larger rides sit on Franklin Street itself across from one section of the food booths. Most of the rides keep a steady line from the time they open at 2 pm until the park closes. The lines move pretty quickly so it is possible to ride on several of the rides in one evening if your stomach can take it. Most of the rides spin, or rock back and forth. Many roll back and forth gaining in momentum until the riders are hanging upside down before going back the other way. A couple of the rides to go in a complete circle. They are fun to watch and at night they are lit up with bright flashing lights.

The West Side Nut Club Fall Festival in Evansville, Indiana draws a large crowd for the first week in October. Family and school reunions are scheduled at and around the festival. Offices offer longer lunches to employees that week and there are even bus shuttles to the park from the downtown area. Many tourists who are near Southwest Indiana make a point to come to town for the festival and as crowded as it is; people have a great time on the rides, playing the games and talking about the exotic food they tried this year.

Television and radio personalities broadcast from the festival and politicians spend time talking with the public at this area event. With this being the 89th year for the festival, it's clear that it is successful as a fundraiser for the whole community.

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