The People’s Choice Festival will return next summer, but at a new location for the first time in its 28-year history.
Grange Park in Centre Hall will host the annual arts festival July 14-17, organizers wrote in a statement. People’s Choice had been held on the grounds of the Pennsylvania Military Museum in Boalsburg since its inception in 1993.
“All things considered, we’d rather not make this move, but new circumstances make staying at the museum untenable,” festival co-directors John Madison and Cindy Rockey wrote.
The latest contract proposal from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, which oversees the state-owned museum, “did not include the possibility of locating the festival at the Pennsylvania Military Museum” after next year, according to the festival committee.
People’s Choice has grown exponentially since its founding, which played a key role in the contract decision, a PHMC spokesperson said.
“The determination was made based on a number of factors, the most critical being the reality that the festival has outgrown [the Military Museum] and our ability to host the event,” Howard Pollman, PHMC director of external affairs, said.
The 2022 edition will mark a return for the festival after COVID-19-related cancelations the past two years. In 2020, the festival committee made the decision to cancel, but this year’s event was nixed because the PHMC informed organizers that COVID-19 guidelines for the property meant it could not host special events through the summer.
After reviewing the contract proposal and coming out of the two-year hiatus, the festival committee decided “now was the best time to make the transition to a new location.”
“The PCF Committee would like to thank the Pennsylvania Military Museum and the PHMC for their support of the People’s Choice Festival over the past years and wish them the best in the future,” the statement said. “They would also like to thank Harris Township and acknowledge their cooperation during our time in Boalsburg.”
Though the festival is headed to a new location, organizers said it will continue to be the same experience that has grown to attract 100,000 visitors each year. Admission will remain free, while local and regional arts and crafts vendors, an extensive food court, live music and other entertainment, educational activities for kids, and a youth sales area all will continue at Grange Park.
People’s Choice started nearly three decades ago as a small festival with about 50 vendors, a handful of food stands and few bands to offer residents and visitors another option for fun at the same time as the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts in State College.
Since then it has become its own destination, with 200 artists, two dozen food vendors and 40 acts performing on two stages. People’s Choice and the Arts Festival, along with Philipsburg’s Heritage Days, have evolved to form a festival weekend in Centre County that is a top tourism attraction.
Like People’s Choice, the Arts Festival and Heritage Days were canceled in 2020 and 2021 and both anticipate returning the same week in July 2022.
