Events – Family Fun

The Petoskey Area is great place to travel with the whole family as it lays host to several events that are filled with family fun!

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Family fun Annual Events

This annual event in Boyne City is a vibrant event that occurs every May in Veterans Park. Walk through the craft fair, have fair food, attend the carnival with the kids, and for the adults: attend the Taste of  Morel event, Mushroom Hunt Contest, or after dark head to the beer tent for live music. In recent years, they have hosted a battle of the bands too!

Each summer, Boyne City Main Street hosts a lineup of live music on street corners throughout Downtown Boyne City. They also offer things like balloon artists for the kids!

For over 20 years, the Harbor Springs Historical Society has put on this two-day family-friendly event each July. Shay Days is an event that celebrates the inventor and Harbor Springs resident Ephraim Shay, who was famous for his patented, geared locomotive. At this event hosted in Shay Park just across the street from the Harbor Springs History Museum, you can expect a variety of activities and educational programs. Things like live model steam trains, children’s crafts, games, and STEM activities, logging demonstrations, and interactive electric trains. Now open is the Ephraim Shay Works Museum, just next to Shay Park, located in the Shay Hexagon House on Main Street.

Each August for over 100 years at the Emmet County Fairgrounds on Charlevoix Ave, the County Fair returns! This event is host to all of the traditional things you expect at a fair that is fun for all ages: livestock barns for viewing livestock, art/craft in the events building, carnival rides, fair foods, and Grand Stand events!

There’s really nothing quite like Independence Day in northern Michigan! Each community holds a 4th of July parade that is great for the kids, as who doesn’t like a 4th of July parade when you’re young?! Most all communities will have their own fireworks as well, Bay Harbor, Boyne City, Petoskey, and Harbor Springs all put on a fireworks show over water! It is a spectacular sight!

Now for over 50 years, Boyne Falls has been having their Annual Boyne Falls Polish Festival at the end of July and beginning of August each summer. Classic Polish Festival events include a polka tent each night, a Mud Run, Grand Royal Parade, Youth Games, Youth Bike Parade, Bump-n-Run, and a carnival that typically includes carnival rides.

The Petoskey Winter Wonderland Festival is put on by the Downtown Petoskey office each February and features ice sculptures throughout town at downtown businesses and larger ones in Pennsylvania Park, ice carving demonstrations, downtown shopping, and more!

Each February, the Harbor Springs Downtown office puts on an ice festival that is a great family fun event that takes over the entire downtown. In years passed, you could expect to see live ice carving demos, a scavenger hunt, an interactive ice park with games in Zorn Park, dueling chainsaws, and more!

Each community puts on a unique holiday open house in the first two weeks of December annually. Petoskey on the first Friday, Harbor Springs on the first Saturday, Bay Harbor on the first weekend, Alanson on the second Saturday, and Boyne City on the last Friday in November! Harbor Springs holds a separate Christmas Tree lighting ceremony on the Saturday following Thanksgiving.

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