FREMONT — With beautiful weather in the forecast for Saturday and no shortage of entertainment and food options in the works, the rescheduled 36th annual Fremont Daffodil Festival promises to offer something for everyone.
Despite weather forcing the festival to reschedule from Mar. 23, most of the entertainment acts, vendors, and food trucks have remained committed to attending.
“Everybody has been so supportive with our vendors,” said Brenda Paul, the Daffodil Festival committee chairperson. “We did lose some due to just scheduling conflicts and also due to it being Easter Weekend. Overall, we were able to fill all the Vendor Spots that we had before, and we’ve actually added a few more. The response and the understanding of everyone when we made the decision last week to reschedule has really been good.”
The third annual Keith Stewart Daffodil Dash begins at 9 a.m. It honors a former co-chair of the Daffodil Festival who served in his position for over 20 years before he died.
The Daffodil Festival begins at 10 a.m. and the Bandit Flight Team will fly over downtown Fremont during the opening ceremonies.
Entertainment during the Daffodil Festival will include Fremont Preschool, A Step of Class Dance Studio, Fremont Stars, North Tower Band, Jimmy Deve, In Motion Entertainment, Tony Jonez and NorthBound Worship.
The Embers were originally scheduled to be the Daffodil Festival’s headline entertainment but a scheduling conflict arose once the festival was rescheduled. North Tower Band has stepped in and will perform on Stage 2 from Noon to 2 p.m.
The Daffodil Festial will also feature a children’s area with inflatables, a car show with the Wayne County Cruisers, and the Eastern Carolina Vintage Farm Equipment Club. NC Party Pals will also be in attendance.
“We do try to have entertainment throughout the day that appeals to everyone,” Paul said. “We are very excited to have North Tower Band, who plays very similar music (to The Embers). Throughout the day we will have inflatables in our children’s area. We have a huge car show that kics off at 10 a.m. with the Wayne County Cruisers, and we are very luck this year to have the Eastern Carolina Vintage Farm Equipment Club.”
There will be options to satisfy a variety of different appetites at the Daffodil Festival with food trucks offering various coffee, food, drink and dessert choices.
“We have so much food, no one will leave hungry, I can assure you,” Paul said. “We have everything from iced coffee, to gourmet cinnamon rolls. We’ve got a Mexican food truck, we’ve got Justo’s Grillin from here in (Goldsboro) that’s a local food truck that has a little bit of everything. We have hot dogs, hamburgers, you name it. We have barbecue chicken, barbecue pork, we have a Chick-fil-a wagon that will be here, we will have Icee trucks, cotton candy, candy apples, any kind of food imaginable will be at our festival.”
The Daffodil Festival will also feature nearly 150 vendors that will line Main Street in downtown Fremont along with the adjacent streets as well.
Parking options for the Daffodil Festival will be available throughout downtown Fremont. Paul suggests arriving to the festival earlier rather than later to ensure finding parking as close to the festival as possible. The 2023 Daffodil Festival attracted an estimated crowd of 15,000 people.
“We do have local parking at local businesses in downtown Fremont which would basically be on 117,” Paul said. “We do have parking that will down towards 117 on the north side of town by where our Wayne County Public Library was. We’ve got parking at the local school as well. There is parking, throughout the day parking may be harder to find than it is first thing in the morning.”
