ComFest (officially The Community Festival) is a free, non-corporate,
music and arts annual
festival
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival ...
currently held each June at
Goodale Park
Goodale Park is a public park in the Victorian Village area of Columbus, Ohio. It was donated to the city in 1851 by Lincoln Goodale. For a few months during the Civil War, it was a staging area for Union troops known as Camp Jackson. ComFest ...
in the
Victorian Village
Victorian Village is a neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, United States, north and near west of Downtown Columbus, Ohio, downtown. It is an established neighborhood built when a streetcar line first ran along Neil Avenue around 1900 with a fair numbe ...
area of
Columbus, Ohio.
Description
The festival bills itself as "The Party with a Purpose".
To accomplish this goal, the festival relies on community members to work together in the planning and operation of the festival serving on committees and work teams including clean-up and recycling, safety and first aid, entertainment, street fair, and the "World Peace Rocks Forever Committee".
History
The festival was first held in 1972
as a showcase for a collection of community organizations including the ''
Columbus Free Press'', Free Health Clinic, Food Co-op, Tenants Union, Crisis Hotline, and Recycling Center. The festival continues to provide a forum for alternative lifestyles and collective activity.
Beer from the Columbus Brewing Company is sold in large, colorful mugs
to fund the cost of the festival itself and to raise money for community projects and grants. All tips from the beer booths go to homeless shelters.
The 45th ComFest was held June 23–25, 2017.
Its theme was "The people united will never be defeated." The featured organization was Community Refugee & Immigration Services; the honored artist was fiddler and singer Megan Palmer.
The 2019 ComFest was held June 28–30.
The 48th ComFest will go virtual for the first time in 2020, as most live events were cancelled caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
.
The 50th ComFest will be held June 24–26, 2022.
References
{{Reflist
External links
Comfest.com
Culture of Columbus, Ohio
Tourist attractions in Columbus, Ohio
Festivals in Ohio