It’s Official – The West Side Nut Club Fall Festival Will Return in October

I can almost taste the pronto pups and deep-fried Oreos already.

The West Side Nut Club announced today through a press release provided to local media the 2021 Fall Festival on Franklin Street absolutely, positively, will happen. You may be thinking, "I thought they already announced this a few months ago?" I know I was. I reached out to the Club's Publicity Chairman, Ryan Beck, by e-mail to get some clarification. Ryan told me the Club had been planning all year to hold the festival, but today's statement makes it officially official.

My assumption, based on his answer, is since so much planning is needed for the event, they went ahead and began to put the pieces in place hoping they would be able to do it, but were hesitant to make it official in the event they would have to cancel again due to a rise in COVID-19 cases in the area.

Currently, Vanderburgh, Warrick, Posey, and Gibson counties have all seen a rise in cases significant enough in the past couple of weeks that all four are now back in the yellow advisory level on the Indiana State Department of Health's coronavirus website. The site does not specify if those who have tested positive for COVID during that time are vaccinated or unvaccinated.

The good news is, with the Fall Festival still roughly three months away, there is time for those numbers to decrease as hopefully more Tri-State residents roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated.

Another good piece of news, in addition to the Festival now officially being announced to go on a scheduled, is that Beck told me the wildly popular half-pot drawing will once again be part of this year's event. As you may recall, despite last year's festival being cancelled, the Club still conducted the half-pot drawing with tickets being sold at various locations in Evansville over the course of a few weekends instead of only along Franklin Street during Festival week. Even without the daily "built-in" crowd the Festival provides, last year's jackpot exceeded the previous year's total by over $100,000.

The 2021 (and 100th) West Side Nut Club Fall Festival is scheduled to run Monday, October 4th through Saturday, October 9th on Franklin Street.

[Source: West Side Nut Club Press Release]