Special Events in Louisville

Louisville has much to celebrate and wastes no time doing just that through various ethnic festivals, fairs, music events, art and trade shows, and of course, horse races. For current listings of events check the local newspapers.

To Louisvillians the Kentucky Derby, held on the first Saturday in May, is not just a horse race but the last day of theKentucky Derby Festivala 10-day event accented by picnics, banquets and dances; music events with top-name entertainment; and bicycle, balloon and steamboat races. The whole festival is kicked off in grand style by Thunder Over Louisville, one of the nation's premiere air shows and fireworks displays. The city comes down with Derby fever a week before the race, and its population mushrooms with the influx of tourists, all anxious to experience one of the nation's largest celebrations.

The National Farm Machinery Show and Tractor Pull Championships, held at the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center, draws crowds in mid-February. Kentucky Crafted: The Market features 300 vendors offering the finest of the state's crafts and folk art in early March; the event also is held at the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center. Kentucky Paso Fino Horse Show, considered to be the World's Fair of equestrian events, takes place in June, and the NSRA Street Rod Nationals, said to be the world's largest street rod event, roars into the center in August with more than 11,000 pre-1949 vehicles.

The park system sponsors a Kentucky Music Weekend, featuring traditional Kentucky mountain music, at Iroquois Park Amphitheatre in late July. In mid-August Louisville presents the Kentucky State Fair and Horse Show, also held at the Exposition Center. Besides the horse show--a prestigious event for Saddlebreds--exhibits, a rodeo and musical entertainment also are on the fair's schedule.

Butchertown's German community holds Strassenfest on Main Street in late August and Oktoberfest on the first weekend in October.

The International Bluegrass Music Association Bluegrass Week is usually held late September to early October. One of the largest free bluegrass music events in the country, this festival includes lots of guitar playin', banjo pickin' and foot stompin' at the Galt House. The National Quartet Convention is held every September and features Southern gospel music.

Area residents look forward to the Art in the Arbor fine arts and crafts festival at Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church, where artists and artisans display and demonstrate their work in mid-May. The fine arts also are celebrated during several other fairs and festivals. Shakespearean plays are performed each summer, mid-June to mid-July, during the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival. Performances are free. The first weekend in October, the St. James Court Art Show is held at St. James and Belgravia courts.

A noted sports event is held in Louisville during the summer. The Louisville Tennis Center presents the boys' USTA National Clay Courts Championship the last week in July.

The city heralds the holiday season with several events. Christmas at the Galt, held in the Galt House Hotel's ballroom from late November to mid-December, combines dinner with a musical production based on Charles Dickens' stay at the hotel in 1842, the year before his "A Christmas Carol" was published. The festivities continue the first weekend in December with the Heart of the Holidays celebration, held throughout the downtown area.