CT's Labor Day Weekend: Jazz, Jamborees, Ren Faires & Epic Corn Mazes
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CONNECTICUT —There’s no shortage of opportunities to ensure that your Summer 2024 goes out with a bang this Labor Day Weekend,
On Saturday, journey to McLevy Green in Downtown Bridgeport for a free, day-long, feel-good end-of-summer celebration. The 4th Annual Bridgeport Jazz Festival will fill the stage from noon to 8 p.m. with top local performers, including the Joe Kiernan Quartet, the Nick Di Maria Quartet, and headliners The Nate Lucas All-Stars.
It will be the first-ever Connecticut River and Roots Festival on Sunday, Sept. 1, but organizers have stacked the deck with headliner Jake Blount, an acclaimed musician and ethnomusicologist. It promises to be a day of music, dance, culture, food, crafts, and a diverse array of food trucks, so it looks like all the bases are covered. Admission is free — you just need to bring your own picnic blanket. Settle in on the Windsor Town Green from noon to 6 p.m.
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The Sherman Chamber Ensemble can pretty much play anything, but this Labor Day weekend they’ll be knee-deep in bluegrass. The virtuoso group will be strummin’ and pickin’ three performances of their “Bluegrass Jamboree,” on Saturday, Aug. 31, 1 p.m. at the Sherman Town Center; Sunday, Sept. 1, 1 p.m. at Kent Barns in Kent; and Sunday, Sept. 1 at 5 p.m. at The Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens in Washington.
The Woodstock Fair has been a Labor Day tradition for over a century, and somehow manages to get just a little bit bigger every year. It’s Connecticut’s largest agricultural fair, and in its 163rd year, also one of the state’s oldest. The festivities begin at noon on Friday, and run through 8 p.m. Labor Day. Expect everything you would expect at your typical state fair — food, midway games, carnival rides, livestock shows, live music (including Molly Hatchet on Friday, Lit on Saturday and KC & The Sunshine Band on Sunday), giant vegetables — only more of it. Tickets are available online here.
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Another big Ag Fair circling its tractors Labor Day weekend Friday through Monday is the Haddam Neck Fair. Look for plenty of skillet throwing, dog stunts and hula-hoop contests alongside the regular fair fare. The same goes for the Goshen Fair, which runs Saturday through Monday, and adds a frozen t-shirt contest, hay bale toss contest, and apple fritter eating contest into the down-home competitive mix.
Expect less hay bale and more chain mail at The Connecticut Renaissance Faire’s Royal Family & Market Weekend. The faire’s opening weekend this Saturday, Sunday and Monday will include New England’s largest Medieval Marketplace, featuring over a hundred artisan shops. Get your huzzahs out at a dozen stages of acrobats, jesters, magicians, musicians, fire-eaters, and fools, and be sure to stay for the big joust. The time capsule will be open at the Lebanon Country Fairgrounds from 10:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
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Big Fair Season in Connecticut may be waning, but Corn Maze and Apple Cider Season are just getting stated. Lyman Orchards in Middlefield is celebrating both, this Saturday and Sunday, at its Corn Maze & Cider Donut Festival, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Horse-drawn wagon rides, square dancers, a petting farm and other activities will only add to the memories.
But they likely won’t prepare you for the crazy-complex corn maze at Twins BBQ in Brookfield, which opens for its season on Saturday. The maze design spans 5 acres with over a mile of pathways. The average time needed to navigate the entire maze is 30 to 40 minutes for phase 1 (targeted at kids) and 60 minutes for phase 2, intended for adults (or kids who are acting up). The maze is open 1:00 to 5:30 p.m. Monday thru Friday and 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekends and holidays. The last maze entry is 5:30 p.m. Tickets are available online here.
Samuel Clemens, known by some as Mark Twain, built a huge part of his legacy in Connecticut, but nowhere more than in Redding. The library there that bears his name celebrates each year with an absolutely enormous book fair, one of the oldest and largest book fairs in all New England. A Labor Day Weekend tradition now in its 63rd year, the 4-day book-a-palooza at the Redding Community Center offers more than 60,000 selections separated into 75 easy to find categories geared toward all ages.
Finally, here’s an odd one: Great Mountain Forest in Norfolk will be holding Moth Night on Saturday, Aug. 31. A bug scientist from The Yale and the Peabody Museum and the CT Entomological Society will guide participants in a brief discussion on night-flying insects. Ultraviolet lights and moth sheets will be set up after dark to see what insects can be attracted. The event begins at 7 p.m., is weather permitting, and will be held at the Manor House Inn.
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