28th Annual North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival - Sep 2026

📅 26 September 2026 – 27 September 2026 | 📍 Forsters Farm, 60 Chestnut Hill Rd., Orange, 01364, United States

Hope Grows Here

Don’t miss the “Festival that Stinks,” a family friendly destination held amid the fall foliage on a historic farm in Orange, MA. Wander among over 100 exhibitors with amazing art, farm-fresh products and food, healing arts, and community organizations. Three stages delight with music, performance, and spoken word. Travel the globe with glorious garlic cuisine and chef demos. Enjoy the free kids’ art-making tent and garlic games for all ages. Orange is the new green! Skill up with local living workshops, EVs on display, and only 2 bags of trash for 8,000 people.

Hope Grows Here is the festival theme for the year and celebrates the impact of this long-standing event. Hope grows the local economy: five million dollars over 28 years has circulated on the festival fields to support local artists, farmers, food producers, and performers. Hope grows through gardens not garbage, with over 4,000 bags kept out of landfills over the years, and food waste transformed into compost to fill 500 garden beds. Hope grows as children raised attending the festival now bring their own families to enjoy the games, performance, skill building workshops, and art-making for all ages. Hope grows among over 40 local environmental, arts, food security, and wellness organizations and projects who’ve shared $75,000 in festival grants made to address pressing needs and regional vitality. All of this is made possible through a fully volunteer organizing committee of friends and neighbors, 200 volunteers the festival weekend, dedicated exhibitors, performers, and presenters, and enthusiastic attendees from near and far!

Inflation busting general admission is only $10 for the weekend and $5 for students, seniors, and Card to Culture: (EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare cardholders). Kids 12 and under are free. Save time, buy tickets online starting Sept 1. Visit www.garlicandarts.org for the full array of exhibitors, performances and workshops, and parking and shuttle info. No pets, service animals only. Be a festival volunteer! Learn more and sign up to volunteer for a shift- there are many tasks from which to choose.

The North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival is organized by an all-volunteer committee of friends and neighbors. The non-profit fiscal sponsor is Common Good. Visit www.garlicandarts.org for the whole bulb, and follow the festival on facebook: Garlic&Arts and Instagram @garlicandarts for regular updates on all of the great exhibitors, performers, and happenings!