Watsonville Strawberry Festival has activities ripe for picking this weekend

WATSONVILLE — All year round, Watsonville is known for its bounty of strawberries, but there are only a few days of the year that the sweet red fruits are front and center, and they happen to be this weekend.

The Watsonville Strawberry Festival will return with a kickoff Friday and a bundle of festivities Saturday and Sunday. The City Plaza will play host to art and food vendors, live entertainment, a carnival and, naturally, lots of strawberries.

The festival began in 1994 as the Watsonville Strawberry and Dessert Festival to provide respite for a downtown that was still reeling from the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake five years earlier. Festivities were canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and reduced to a one-day affair the following year before returning to its usual two days in 2022.

Recreation Supervisor Jessica Beebe hopes the festival will highlight the community’s resiliency coming off the flooding of the Pajaro Valley.

“We’ve had another rough year with the flooding, and the fact that we are able to celebrate a successful strawberry harvest is just a wonderful thing,” she said.

This year you can see strawberries taking on just about every form, courtesy of the food vendors. There will be strawberry smoothies, funnel cakes, strawberry shortcake, strawberry pizzas, strawberry tacos, strawberry tamales and a strawberry pie-eating contest. The kickoff party, which runs 5 to 9 p.m., will feature carnival rides such as the Berry-Go-Round, Super Slide, Dragon Wagon rollercoaster, fun houses and a Kite Flyer simulation ride and live music by returning festival favorites Harpin Jonny and the Groovehounds, a blues-rock quintet who have also performed at the Catalyst Club, KPIG’s Swine Soiree concerts and Scotts Valley’s Summer Concert Series.

The next two days will feature the full carnival, art and food vendors, various forms of strawberry treats and pie-eating contests. New this year will be a series of “Berry Best Dressed” contests, where people can compete to see who has the best strawberry outfits.

“We’ll have four of them throughout the weekend,” said Beebe. “We are looking for people who come in strawberry-inspired attire to participate in those contests, so they’ll be invited to come up on the stage and the crowd will choose their very best-dressed favorite.”

As always, there will be live entertainment throughout both days. Artists performing on the main stage include Samz School of Rock, The Ville Band, Spit “N” Mud, Cuarto Prestigio, Chicano All Stars, Hermanos de Lealtad, TNT and the Explosions, Banda la Restructurada de Colima, The Mondays and Banda Ritmo Alegre de Guadalajara Jal.

The Cultural Stage will feature performances by Los Mayitos, Ballet Folklorico Angeles Danzantes, Proyecto Dos, Trio Santa Maria, Ballet Estrellas de Esperanza, Mariachi Juvenil Luz de Luna and a special guest on both days.

Proyecto Dos and Trio Santa Maria will also perform on the Beer & Wine Garden Stage, which additionally will feature Los Trankis, Danza Corazon Azteca and Daniel Offbrand with special guest Yoni Fre$co. For dates and times of all performances, go to WatsonvilleStrawberryFestival.com.

“It’s a nice variety of entertainment,” said Beebe.

Returning for its second year will be the Strawberry Jam Fun Run. Beginning and ending at Ramsay Park, the 5K will take runners and walkers past Watsonville’s sloughs and Ohlone Parkway. There will also be adult and kid 1Ks. Check-in begins at 6:45 a.m., with the kids’ 1K beginning at 7:45 and the 5K starting at 8. Participants may register in advance at Active.com, by way of WatsonvilleStrawberryFestival.com.

Beebe said the event is a celebration of Watsonville, from the exhibitions of artists to the servings of the Pajaro Valley’s largest crop.

“We are such a resilient community, and I hope that (attendees) take away a sense of pride celebrating that,” she said.

The festival is 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday near the Watsonville City Plaza, 358 Main St. For information, go to WatsonvilleStrawberryFestival.com.