Montana Cultural Fair organizers prep for Thursday's event

Great Falls will host the annual Montana Cultural Fair at the Mansfield Convention Center on Thursday, August 8, 2024. The event begins at 5 p.m. and will run through 8 p.m.

The event, organized by the Rotary Club of Great Falls, will feature cultural exhibits and vendors, food tastings from a variety of cultures, and performances by musicians, dancers, and story-tellers.

What to expect:

• $10 admission includes food samples and performances
• Pepsi & water stands + beer garden
• Food trucks available for separate meal purchases
• 1,500+ participants celebrating cultural diversity

On Tuesday evening, the volunteers, performers, and vendors got to check out each other’s booths, learn about other cultures and taste-test the food.
Members of the cultural fair gathered to feast on various food samples that can be found at the upcoming event, such as empanadas from Venezuela, cardamom cookies from Finland, and Native American bullet soup and bannock to name a few.

Carla Alvarez has represented Venezuela at the fair for the past three years.

Alvarez enjoys teaching others about the friendly culture of Venezuelans: “We are so friendly, we enjoy helping other people. We forget the problems in Venezuela and show people our cultures. My favorite part of the multicultural fair is showing people parts of your culture, your food, and traditions.”

This year, the event will be located inside the Mansfield Center in Great Falls, to avoid weather conditions like heat and wind.

Additionally, each food vendor at the fair will be certified by the health department.

Eight cultures will be represented through food samples at the fair while twelve cultures will be represented through entertainment and education, from traditional Hawaiian dances to Scottish bagpipes.

Iain Morrison, a bagpiper with the Great Falls Pipe Band, says, “I love performing as a bagpiper, you start playing an instrument like that and people are going to be just drawn to the big amount of noise that comes up playing bagpipes. Just having that attention and being able to show off some of the skills, from a multicultural perspective, just being able to share that music with other people and have all the other things that come together, it’s pretty wonderful.”

The Montana Cultural Fair will be on Thursday, August 8th, at the Great Falls Civic Center (#2 Park Drive South) from 5pm to 8pm. For more information, click here.