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Community Corner

What's a Daffodil Festival without Daffodils? A Whole Lot of Fun!

This weekend's festival promises plenty of entertainment for the whole family.


The yellow daffodil blooms came a bit too early this year, but everything else is shaping up nicely for this weekend’s 34th annual Meriden Daffodil Festival.

“All systems are go,” Mayor Mike Rohde told Patch.

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Even the weather looks like it will cooperate for the two-day event featuring food, crafts, live music, children’s entertainment, fireworks and more. About 70,000 people are expected to attend, Rohde estimates.

“We have a great group of volunteers who work all year long preparing for this,” he says.

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One of them is Daffodil Festival Chair Mark Zebora, Meriden’s Director of Parks and Recreation. Zebora leads a committee of 30 who meet year round to pull off the event. In fact, planning for next year’s festival has already started, he reveals.

Committee members become “like a secondary family,” Zebora adds, especially in the intensive few weeks leading up to the festival when they are in almost constant contact by phone, text or in person.

In addition to the core planning committee, it takes a crew of 270 to 300 volunteers to pull off the event, Zebora says.

For this weekend’s festivities, set-up began four or five weeks ago with the electrical systems, Zebora explains. Over the month of April, Hubbard Park has slowly transformed into a springtime wonderland of tents, daffodil banners and carnival rides.

“This is Meriden’s premiere signature event for the community,” Rohde says. “It’s a massive undertaking. I don’t know that there’s anything like it in Connecticut.”

Some of the festival’s highlights include a parade featuring about 3,000 marchers on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. and fireworks Saturday night at 8:30. According to Zebora, the fireworks will be launched from a new location this year--a pavilion overlooking the park on Cliff Drive.

“This will afford a great view to all the people in the park,” Zebora explains, and to much of Meriden, as well.

For only the second year, the festival will feature entertainment exclusively by Connecticut residents.

“We wanted to give entertainers in our state the chance to perform before the big crowds,” Zebora says.

Though the Daffodil Festival may change a bit from year to year, it has been part of the rite of spring in the Silver City for more than three decades.

“It’s a tradition,” Mayor Rohde maintains. “People come year after year with their families. It’s a chance for the whole community to come together.”


The Meriden Daffodil Festival runs Saturday, April 28, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, April 29, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free shuttle buses are available to and from Platt High School, Wilcox Technical School, the Westfield Mall, and the Hub downtown. For a complete schedule of events, visit the festival website at www.daffodilfest.com.

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