Delaware
Festival frenzy for Delawareans in 2024: Lineup of 14 dope events in new year
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Who in their right mind in Delaware is already thinking about can’t-miss festivals for 2024? It’s the type of person who messed around and found out that events do sell out.
To avoid that drama, you can get an early start on planning your schedule for 14 sweet festive events located in and around the First State in 2024.
There’s a strong focus on spring and summer events for this preview, stick with us for updates.
Kennett Winterfest, Kennett Square, Pa.
The beer event Kennett Winterfest gives new meaning to the phrase “cold drinks.” The February festival has over 60 breweries on tap serving over 130 beers, joined by live music and food trucks.
The event has a Delaware vibe since it’s just down the road and features local breweries like First State Brewing, Iron Hill, Bellefonte Brewing, Big Oyster Brewery, Wilmington Brew Works, and Dewey Beer. A regular admission ticket gets you an unlimited number of tastings. Designed drivers pay $15 (plus fee) and will receive a mocktail.
Kennett Winterfest (600 S. Broad St., Kennett Square, Pennsylvania) from 12:30 to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 24. General admission $60 (plus fee); Designated driver $15 (plus fee). Visit kennettwinterfest.com.
Dover NASCAR weekend in Fan Zone
During NASCAR weekend there’s always a festival atmosphere at Dover Motor Speedway’s Fan Zone, a place that often offers free and fun activities for supporters.
The Fan Zone is home to driver autograph sessions, free concerts (which have hosted big names like Jimmie Allen and X Ambassadors), games and attractions for kids and adults.
The Monster Monument at Victory Plaza is a huge attraction and some of fans’ favorite NASCAR drivers and executives are usually spotted doing interviews at the 46-foot-tall Monster.
When NASCAR returns with a tripleheader to the Monster Mile in April, fans can look forward to the Track Treasures Trailer that features mementos, NASCAR collectibles, one-of-a-kind autographed items, clothing and advertising banners for sale near the Monster Monument.
Proceeds will benefit Speedway Children’s Charities, Dover Motor Speedway Chapter, per Dover Motor Speedway’s website.
Race fans are encouraged by the Speedway to keep checking the website for added attractions, event times and more about Fan Zone festivities for the spring.
Dover Motor Speedway (1131 N. Dupont Highway, Dover) from Friday, April 26 to Sunday, April 28. More details TBA. Visit dovermotorspeedway.com.
WrestleMania 40, Philadelphia
The Super Bowl of professional wrestling is back in the City of Brotherly Love for the first time in 25 years with WrestleMania 40. This two-day event also marks WrestleMania’s first time in the home of the Philadelphia Eagles.
It’s confirmed (via a promo image on their website) that the Mania card includes wrestlers Brock Lesnar, Cody Rhodes, Rhea Ripley, Roman Reigns, Asuka, Bianca Belair and Seth Rollins. Other stars that fans want/expect to see on the card are CM Punk, Randy Orton, John Cena and Stone Cold, and plenty others. More clarity about who is participating in WrestleMania will likely be revealed after the Royal Rumble happens Jan. 27.
Lincoln Financial Field at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, April 6 and Sunday, April 7. Tickets combos for both days are $560 to $10,000+. Tickets for each night are $188 to $5,000+. Visit wwe.com.
420 weed party and more, Townsend
You and your best buds can roll up to one of the First State’s biggest 420 celebrations for a one-of-a-kind, 24-hour event that’ll unite marijuana lovers in the same month that Delaware legalized weed in 2023.
Delfire Group and Delaware NORML are teaming up to deliver two marijuana-themed events in one: Delfire’s Spring Fling event and Delaware NORML’s 420 Party.
This fully baked collaboration features art vendors, merch, live music, cannabis advocacy and camping at, and lots of weed. The event is for ages 21 or older.
Fire Base Lloyd (474 Flemings Landing Road, Townsend) on Saturday, April 20. More details TBA. Visit Facebook.com/weedstockde or Facebook.com/DENORML.
Dover Days Festival
One of Delaware’s oldest and largest festivals is in the Capital City, Dover Days takes guests back to the Colonial era for two days.
The first day has fireworks and the second offers a full festival and parade. Dover Days is known for Maypole dancing, balloon rides, historic re-enactments, artisans, games and food vendors, and more. This festival is rain or shine.
Near Leg Hall (411 Legislative Ave.) on Friday, May 3 and Saturday, May 4. More details TBA. Visitdelawarevillages.com.
Point-To-Point, Winterthur
A fashion show, carnival and horse racing — these ingredients make up the 46th annual Winterthur Point-To-Point Steeplechase.
The yearly event raises money for the preservation and maintenance of the garden and estate at Winterthur. It features a parade of pups and carriages, steeple chase racing, vintage vehicles, raffles, community vendors and lots of family activities. But folks love to come out for tailgating to show off their extravagant outfits.
Winterthur (5105 Kennett Pike, Winterthur) from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 5. More details TBA. Visit winterthur.org or (302) 888-4600.
Wilmington Flower Market
A lavish garden of fun and entertainment will blossom at a festive, three-day event that’s a staple in northern Delaware. The 103rd annual Wilmington Flower Market has live music, rides, food, beer and (of course) flowers, and lots more. The event also has a habit of booking musical acts that’ve played Firefly.
Proceeds from the Flower Market benefit children’s charities in Delaware.
Rockford Park (2629 W. 19th St., Wilmington) from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, May 9; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, May 10; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, May 11. More details TBA. Visit wilmingtonflowermarket.org.
Dover Comic Con
Since actions speak louder than words, you can tell everyone who your favorite anime is by cosplaying them at Dover Comic Con.
The free event is family-friendly and particularly good for folks who are new to cosplay and/or want to get a taste of what a comic convention is all about. (The con is also perfect for folks who love to people watch.) Lots of vendors and artisans sell wares and items at the convention.
There’s usually cool vehicles on display like replicas of the Batmobile or “Jurassic Park” Jeep. Last summer, “Pokémon” fans went wild over a replica of the Pikabug car pulled up.
Near Leg Hall (411 Legislative Ave.) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 8. More details TBA. Visit delmarvaevents.net.
June Jam, Houston
The longtime festival June Jam will make some noise with its 46th annual musical rodeo featuring headliner Shoot to Thrill, the all-female tribute to AC/DC.
June Jam, which is a nonprofit, is self-branded as the longest-running music festival in the nation (since the pandemic couldn’t even stop it).
Over the years, proceeds from June Jam have benefited all sorts of causes, from helping people struggling with medical bills to supporting Toys for Tots.
G&R Recreation Campground (4075 Gun and Rod Club Road, Houston) on Saturday, June 19. More details TBA. Visit junejam.com.
Delaware State Fair, Harrington
From pig races and concerts to crunchy fried Oreos, there’s a little something for everybody to enjoy at Delaware’s hottest event of the summer: the Delaware State Fair.
Last year’s event attracted 308,989 guests over 10 days with headline performances by comedian Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, rappers Nelly and Vanilla Ice, country acts Lainey Wilson, Tyler Hubbard, Jackson Dean and Riley Green, plus Christian artist Zach Williams.
Delaware State Fair (18500 S. Dupont Highway, Harrington) Thursday, July 18 through Saturday, July 27. General admission tickets are up to $10 in person or $10.50 (online). Concerts on the Grandstand are extra. More details TBA. Visit delawarestatefair.com or (302) 398-3269.
Phish festival, The Woodlands Dover
The iconic jam band Phish will debut a new four-day festival in The Woodlands of Dover this summer.
The Woodlands have been starving for a festival since Firefly took a break and skipped 2023. The surprise announcement of the Phish event (which isn’t part of Firefly) is giving the Capital City renewed excitement by attracting a fresh audience of music lovers. Phishheads tend to be little older than the college-aged Firefly crowd, yet they’re still passionate and intense about seeing live shows (something “Phish phans” have a reputation for).
Details about Phish’s event are bare at the moment. But ticket prices and more information is probably coming soon. Check back with us soon.
The Woodlands (1131 N. Dupont Highway, Dover) from Thursday, Aug. 15 to Sunday, Aug. 18. More details TBA. Visit Phish.com.
Firefly Music Festival, The Woodlands Dover
Despite some fan speculation that Firefly Music Festival might not return for a second straight summer, Firefly organizers said in 2022 that they will come back to The Woodlands for 2024.
So far, the festival producers haven’t said otherwise. The last Firefly brought four days of music to The Woodlands with over 100 acts including headliners Halsey, My Chemical Romance, Green Day and Dua Lipa.
With Firefly attendance dropping over the years, the annual festival took the year off in 2023 to “recharge our lights.” Firefly producers have been quiet during their hiatus and haven’t revealed their festival lineup yet.
The Woodlands (1131 N. Dupont Highway, Dover). More details TBA. Visit fireflyfestival.com.
Delaware Renaissance Faire, Townsend
Vikings, elves and everyone in-between are welcome for a third season at the Delaware Renaissance Festival, organizers announced.
In 2023, Delafaire expanded to three weekends (Saturdays and Sundays) and sold out each Saturday. The fall festival also drew new vendors and entertainers to this family-friendly event that offers archery, axe-throwing and much more.
Since launching in 2022, Delafaire has quickly become one of the First State’s most beloved events. The Ren Faire’s website announced it’s coming back for its third annual event in 2024. Ticket prices and dates haven’t been announced yet.
Fire Base Lloyd (474 Flemings Landing Road, Townsend) in fall 2024. More details TBA. Visit delafaire.com.
Oceans Calling — Ocean City, Md.
The debut of Oceans Calling in the fall saw more than 30 artists hit the stage across three days. Acts included John Mayer, Alanis Morissette, Incubus, Jack Johnson and The Lumineers.
Festival organizers recently promised “a triumphant return” back to Ocean City this September. Oceans Calling hasn’t announced its lineup yet.
Ocean City Inlet Beach (809 South Atlantic Ave., Ocean City, Maryland) from Friday, Sept. 27, to Sunday, Sept. 29. More details TBA. Visit oceanscallingfestival.com.
If you have an interesting story idea, email lifestyle reporter Andre Lamar at alamar@gannett.com. Consider signing up for his weekly newsletter, DO Delaware, at delawareonline.com/newsletters.
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Why Should Delaware Care?
As lawmakers face their final working day of the year, a slew of significant bills have yet to be considered. Any bill that is not approved by both chambers as of midnight June 30 is officially marked dead, and must be reintroduced in the next General Assembly that begins in January.
As the final day of the 2026 legislative session approaches on Tuesday, several bills face uncertain futures, including a slate of property tax reforms and legislation that seeks to rein in healthcare costs.
Also pending is the state’s often-contentious capital budget that would distribute nearly $1.26 billion dollars to state building projects.
The list of pending legislation remains despite a lively penultimate week in Dover during which lawmakers passed immigration enforcement reform, gun control legislation, and affordable housing requirements for municipalities.
Lawmakers also shockingly failed to advance a proposed amendment to the Delaware Constitution that would enshrine the rights to gay and interracial marriage in the state. Both are currently legal in Delaware, but an amendment would make it considerably harder for lawmakers to remove those protections.
In all, the final days of the 2026 legislative session cap off a generally subdued year of lawmaking – particularly when compared to last year’s fights over the state’s corporate franchise, the Port of Wilmington and control of zoning rules for marijuana shops and a wind-farm substation.
The session also heads toward a close as several lawmakers prepare for what is expected to be hard-fought campaigns for reelection.
What passed this week?
Lawmakers passed a slew of significant bills this past week relating to land use, immigration, education funding and part of the state’s 2027 fiscal year budget.
Those bills now will all advance to Gov. Matt Meyer’s desk to be considered for signatures or vetoes.
Senate Bill 23, which generated substantial pushback from local governments across the state, passed the House on Tuesday with an unusual mix of bipartisan support. If signed into law, the bill would require municipalities to increase housing density and incorporate additional affordable housing reforms in their comprehensive plans.
Lawmakers also passed Senate Bill 13, which would greatly increase the number of patients eligible to receive free or reduced-price treatment – often called charity care – from the state’s nonprofit hospitals.
That bill was introduced months after a Spotlight Delaware investigation called into question the charity care practices at the state’s largest healthcare system, ChristianaCare.
A pair of immigration reform bills passed the Senate on Thursday, following a lengthy debate about the role of local law enforcement in federal immigration policy.
House Bill 368 would prohibit local and state law enforcement officials from detaining individuals simply because of their immigration status. People accused of serious crimes could still be held for prosecution. House Bill 94 would ban law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in specific spaces — schools, churches and healthcare facilities.
Two bills focused on the funding structure for public schools unanimously passed the House on Wednesday, following up on long-debated changes to how education is funded in Delaware.
Senate Bill 302 allows the state to begin implementing the new hybrid school funding formula, which allocates more money for schools with more low-income or English-language learning students. Senate Bill 303 charges the Public Education Funding Commission to continue studying education funding in future years.
Both chambers also passed the fiscal year 2027 operating budget with relatively little fanfare. The budget includes a 6.3% spending increase from last year, above the 5% growth that Gov. Meyer called for in his original budget proposal in January.
What’s left to do?
Several bills are left to be considered during the General Assembly’s final working day on Tuesday, including the state’s billion-dollar capital budget.
That bill, which requires a three-fourths majority vote in order to pass, presents a rare opportunity for Republicans to exert power over the negotiations. Democrats are currently one seat short of a three-fourths majority in the Senate and four seats short in the House, requiring them to receive at least some Republican buy-in on the final proposal.
There could be a few sticking points in bond bill negotiations, including $35 million earmarked for the expansion of Legislative Hall. It would be the third largest appropriation anywhere in the bond bill.
John Flaherty, a director of the Delaware Coalition for Open Government, decried the lack of public notice or input for such a massive project in the waning days of the legislature.
“The Delaware General Assembly is in full session for just 43 days out of the entire year. Spending $35 million to expand a complex that sits largely empty or underutilized for more than 300 days a year is an indefensible use of state revenues, especially when community-facing infrastructure projects face strict funding limits,” he said in a statement.
Other bills left to be considered include a slate of property tax reforms that were introduced earlier this month in response to the fallout from last year’s first-in-a-generation property reassessments.
Those bills, which were filed following months of committee hearings to investigate what exactly went wrong in the aftermath of reassessment, include a proposal to indefinitely extend New Castle County school districts’ controversial ability to tax commercial and residential properties at different rates.
Another healthcare-focused bill, Senate Bill 1, also remains up for consideration in the House.
A primary care reform bill that also includes price caps for government-regulated insurance plans, SB 1 was scaled back from its original form through months of negotiations with the state’s healthcare lobby.
Those changes would delay the implementation of price caps on hospital procedures, limit some state oversight in setting those caps, and completely exempt some hospitals from the law altogether.
The bill unanimously passed in the Senate last month, but it has not yet been considered in the House.
Lawmakers in both the House and Senate are set to reconvene for the final time this year at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, June 30. Those hearings could extend long into the night depending on how readily legislators can strike deals, reach consensus or find compromise on any number of the proposals remaining before them.
Read more from Spotlight Delaware
The Hagley Museum and Library houses a collection of patent models
The Hagley Museum and Library houses the nation’s second-largest collection of patent models, many of which the public never gets to see.
For most, 41 years of service is more than enough. For State Librarian Annie Norman, though, even retirement can’t slow her down.
“The work is never done; there’s always something to do,” she said. “I’m going to have to continue to help in other ways.”
Norman will step away this fall after 24 years as the Delaware state librarian and director of the Delaware Division of Libraries.
Throughout her tenure, Norman made waves; the director helped create the Delaware Library Consortium, which allowed all of Delaware’s Public libraries to share items, and brought the library system along during a wave of technological change. For these achievements, she was named to the Delaware Women’s Hall of Fame in 2016 and appointed by President Joe Biden as a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board.
We spoke with Norman as she wraps up an accomplished career about her proudest achievements, and the state of libraries in 2026.
Question: As you look back on your tenure, what was your proudest accomplishment?
Answer: What I’ll be known for more than anything is probably the statewide library catalog and consortium. The politics of bringing all of those libraries together, after years of there being four separate library catalogs in Delaware, took about eight years. More recently, I think bringing the school libraries into that catalog is going to be really significant. We’ve got more than 50 school libraries to be a part of the statewide catalog, something we think can really help with the literacy crisis in this state.
One of the biggest challenges of your tenure was adjusting to the large wave of technology that came about. How have you and the Delaware libraries handled it?
It’s been very systematic. We have a great IT team that helps manage for us, as well as the state funding 100% of library technologies. The growth of the iPhone has certainly had a huge impact on literacy, but we’re really just working hard to bring back the excitement of reading.
The Delaware libraries’ programming have always been a popular resource. How important do you view these offerings to local communities, and will they continue to expand?
Yes, libraries are about enrichment, which means helping support people in things like entrepreneurship, education and innovation. We’ve had libraries start up job centers, which were so successful we could expand to entrepreneurship, and even help with more basic social needs, by starting a “social innovation team” to help with more of the social services-type work.
Where we still struggle is we can only help people access Delaware systems to help with their needs, not fix things within those systems. For that reason, we always encourage these systems to work with us, so the Delaware library system can fit everyone’s needs.
Cuts toward libraries just occurred in New Castle County, with the potential for more to come. How will the library system look to stay afloat?
Because of the economy, because of federal changes, things can get difficult, it’s not the first time we’ve experienced budget cuts. We’ve progressed significantly over the years, but there is much more work to do, and I don’t know that the public understands how critical libraries and librarians are to literacy.
The power of walking into a library and being able to choose what you want to read for a child is powerful, and until people understand that, we can’t achieve our literacy goals.
Adam Denn is an intern reporter for Delaware Online/The News Journal. You can reach him at apdenn@delawareonline.com.
Inspiration
Do you have a suggestion for our Inspiration page? E-mail Tammy Paolino at tpaolino@usatodayco.com
DELAWARE COUNTY, Ohio — People in Delaware County said it feels like new housing developments are popping up on every corner.
WSYX
“What haven’t you noticed, right? The whole area just exploded,” said Scott Shonebarger.
Scott Sanders, the executive director of the Regional Planning Commission, said companies like Intel and other industries are a main driver for thousands of people moving to Delaware County.
With the big boom comes an urgent need for more housing.
John Wicks is the developer at Real Property Design and Development.
He has spent over a decade building homes for families in Delaware County.
Wicks said the Olentangy School District is one of the hottest spots for new homes.
“I started with one high school up until the 90s, then now we’re up to four up to five different high schools so it’s just a big draw,” said Wicks. “It’s a beautiful community.”
The district has grown into the fourth largest in Ohio with a new elementary school opening next year, and a fifth high school in 2028.
Wicks said the growth has presented some challenges over the years like labor shortage and some opposition.
“It’s become a big issue for a lot of people that live in and around these areas. They tend to oppose new growth and new development, so restrictions have gotten a little bit harder. Costs have obviously gone up over the last 20 years,” said Wicks.
The planning commission says between 275,000 and 350,000 people could call Delaware County home by 2040.
That’s up from 214,000 in 2020.
Scott Shonebarger said he supports growth but wonders when is enough.
“I mean to a certain extent I think you know at some point right you have to have some sort of boundaries I think, getting into the fact that now you have five high schools,” said Shonebarger. “What’s the limit?”
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