The City of Hobart kicked off its 31st annual Lakefront Festival on Thursday, August 18. There was an endless amount of things for the Hobart community to enjoy— live music, a beer garden, plenty of delicious food, and a huge area packed with things to keep kids entertained. The summer may be ending, but the festival was the last summer hurrah that everyone needed.
“It’s just kind of like one last time for everybody to get together in Festival Park and hang out and enjoy the last bits of summer,” said Nikki Lopez, the event director for the City of Hobart.
The band Buck Daddy launched the start of the festival with some amazing tunes. Many people sat back in their folding chairs, drink in hand, just enjoying the music. Others had a great time dancing in front of the blasting speakers, feeling the vibrations pound through their feet. Buck Daddy was certainly a success, and the rest of the bands lined up for the festival weekend are sure to be hit too. Some of the lined-up bands are Love Pumps, Chronic Flannel, and Steel Country, and each one will bring something that everyone can enjoy.
“When we book the bands we try to do a little bit of everything. We have the country, we have the 90s, we have pop, so we try to kind of have something for everybody,” said Lopez.
The great thing about the Lakefront Festival is that it’s more than just your average festival with live music and a beer garden. Many events come together to make the festival what it is.
“What’s special about this event is that we have a lot of events built into the festival itself,” said Lopez.
One of the events that Lopez is most looking forward to is the dam duct tape and cardboard regatta. People are challenged to build a boat out of cardboard and duct tape, and then on Saturday, everyone races their boats to see whose is the fastest.
“It’s my favorite 15 minutes of the year,” laughed Lopez.
Lopez also loves how many vendors come out to the festival. This year, local softball player Taylor Lopez came out to the festival and sold corn ears to fundraise for her travel softball expenses. She wanted to make things easier on her parents, and she thought raising money would be a big help. The Lakefront Festival gave her the perfect opportunity to do so. Her tent had one of the biggest lines of people—they couldn’t get enough of her corn.
“We live in Hobert and we know a lot of the families who live here. We just knew we would get a big crowd,” said Taylor Lopez.
The City of Hobart worked hard to put together this year’s festival. Lopez explained that since Covid, sponsorships have declined, so they’ve had to find other ways to raise revenue. Despite this obstacle, quite a few businesses came through to help make this year’s festival happen.
Indiana American Water was the largest sponsor of the year and donated $2500 for the event. Lopez is grateful to American Water and all the other businesses who support the festival each year even through more difficult times.
“We’re appreciative of all that,” said Lopez.
The 31st annual City of Hobart Lakefront Festival was another successful event for the city’s books. It was a great way to bring the community together and celebrate another wonderful summer here in Northwest Indiana.
To learn more about the City of Hobart’s Lakefront Festival, visit https://www.cityofhobart.org/204/Lakefront-Festival.
