Cross another local activity off my “things to experience” list. This year, I finally attended the Chatham Sweetcorn Festival.
For those of you not familiar with Central Illinois, Chatham (pronounced chat-um) is a town south of Springfield on Illinois 4. Many of its residents work in Springfield, which is a short drive away.
The Sweetcorn Festival started as a small food/beer/entertainment local summertime celebration by the Chatham Jaycees. Today, it’s a large festival that draws thousands of people. The main attraction, if you couldn’t guess, is the corn. I don’t know a lot about agriculture, but corn appears to be a pretty popular crop in this part of the state. My neighborhood in Springfield is surrounded by corn fields. This festival seems like an excuse to pluck some of that tasty corn and combine it with some food and drink that isn’t quite as good for you. If so, it’s all the excuse I need!
This year’s event was held July 17 and 18. I should add that the Sweetcorn Festival is much more than eating corn and drinking beer. In fact, many events take place during Friday and Saturday. One of the most notable ones is the cow chip throw, which gained some national notoriety on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien" in the mid-1990s. If you don’t know what a cow chip is, do some searching online. I don’t think I should be the one to break it to you.
I went with a few friends this year on Saturday, the 18th. This year’s location was “South Park,” as one of my former Chatham-resident friends put it. We arrived just after 7:30 p.m. The weather was surprisingly cool for a mid-July day, with some people wearing hooded, zip-up sweatshirts. It was our first time there for each of us, so we wandered around a bit while making our way to the ticket stand. The ticket concept works just like the Taste of Downtown. You buy food/drink tickets at a booth and use them at the vendor of your choice. The main courses (corn, burgers, brats, hot dogs, pork) were served in the large “food tent” with other vendors selling beer, funnel cakes, kettle corn, etcetera on the festival grounds. Other attractions included kids’ play areas, a climbing wall and various vendors selling their wares along the south end of the festival grounds. A stage at the west side of the grounds served as the main entertainment area. You can read more about the Sweetcorn Festival on the SJ-R’s site.
The band playing that night was The Station, who last played the Sweetcorn Festival 10 years ago. You can catch them often at Marly’s Pub downtown. They played a combination of original music and covers. Two of the covers were Pink Floyd songs, which instantly gives them bonus points in my book. You can read a little more about The Station here and buy some of their music at CD Baby.