Gates Close on Record Setting Apple Festival

As we arrive in late October, Gilmer is feeling the aftermath of the ever popular Apple Festival held over our last two weekends.

The annual event often brings in much of Gilmer County’s tourism and is widely held to be among the largest events in North Georgia. This year however brought in a few more visitors than expected along with local people visiting the fairgrounds. In fact, the first day of the festival, Saturday October 8, ended as the second largest Apple Festival day in its history according to Gilmer Chamber Director Paige Green.

Though the crowds and traffic poured into Ellijay to visit the festival, the Gilmer Chamber was a part of the coordination efforts along with the Gilmer County Charter School Systems, several members of local law enforcement and medical services, and even volunteers from local Boy Scout Troops to help with both foot traffic and vehicle traffic to maintain the status as Investigator Greg Arp said, “It’s gone very smoothly this year.”

It wasn’t just the first weekend, however, as the Apple Festival overall attracted over 60,000 people through both weekends. According to Green, this festival also boasted the largest gate admission since the 2010 Apple Festival.

With 267 booths just at the fairgrounds, the Festival utilized twelve school buses contracted the the Board of Education to further facilitate access to Ellijay’s square for more vendors and our own local shops downtown and back to the Festival grounds for one of the roughly twenty entertainment acts held on the stage over the two weekends.

Green also repeated Investigator Arp’s sentiments saying the Festival was “One of the smoothest running we’ve had.”