Summer festival season is nearly upon us.
From celebrations of art, music, and Italian-American heritage, to a festival devoted to the humble pickle, Pennsylvania’s summer will be packed with events offering everything from food and shopping to live music and a chance to connect with local communities.
Read on to learn about eight summer festivals in Pennsylvania that you won’t want to miss in —and then mark your calendars.
Jubilee Day – Mechanicsburg
Date: Thursday, June 18
The largest one-day street fair on the entire East Coast takes place in Mechanicsburg in June, when carnival rides, live entertainment, and hundreds of arts and crafts vendors and food stalls take over the town’s Main and Market Streets for Jubilee Day, a free Mechanicsburg tradition that has persisted for more than a century. Though Mechanicsburg may be small with a population of just over 9,000, as many as 70,000 people will welcome summer during this year’s community celebration.
Pennsylvania Firefly Festival – Tionesta
Dates: Friday, June 26 and Saturday, June 27
Celebrate the Pennsylvania state insect, the firefly, at the Pennsylvania Firefly Festival in Forest County’s Tionesta. Everyone is invited to charming Tionesta Market Village on Saturday, June 27, for a community festival day featuring live music, unique Market Village vendors, and educational exhibits on fireflies and the surrounding environment.
The festival also hosts programming and guided tours to see fireflies—including synchronous firefly displays—at Tionesta Lake Information Center for a lucky 75 guests each night. Because of overwhelming demand, a lottery system determines who can purchase tickets to the programs featuring the celebrity insects. Sign up before the end of March to enter the lottery.
Picklesburgh – Pittsburgh
Dates: Thursday, July 16 to Sunday, July 19
Picklesburgh burst onto the Pittsburgh festival scene in 2015 and quickly became known to pickle fans nationwide, with the downtown Pittsburgh festival attracting as many as 250,000 visitors in 2024. Picklesburgh organizers have been hard at work to make the event—with its pickle juice drinking contests, pickle-flavored beer and pierogi, and live entertainment—a can’t-miss festival even as accolades like the best specialty food festival in the US encourage shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. Last year, the festival expanded its footprint, operating on the Roberto Clemente Bridge, on the Andy Warhol Bridge, and throughout several other downtown locations.
Endless Mountain Music Festival – Wellsboro
Dates: Friday, July 17 to Sunday, Aug. 2
Each summer, the Endless Mountain Music Festival brings celebrated classical musicians to the rural mountains of Central Pennsylvania, hosting 17 shows over 17 days. The performances run from orchestral music to percussion, big band, and string quartets and are hosted alongside the beauty of the region in Wellsboro, Knoxville, Mansfield, and Coudersport, as well as in parts of nearby southern New York. When tickets go on sale, you can purchase admission to individual shows or get a discount by planning to attend multiple—even all 17.
Musikfest – Bethlehem
Dates: Friday, July 31 to Sunday, Aug. 9
The country’s largest free music festival, Musikfest, takes place in Pennsylvania’s own Bethlehem over 10 days in the summer. More than one million people will journey to Bethlehem to see performances from a schedule filled with over 400 musicians and performing artists. The 2026 headliners of the festival’s main stage (the only stage to charge admission) include Yellowcard, Taking Back Sunday, Weird Al, AJR, Train, John Mulaney, and more to be announced. In addition to the main stage, 15 other stages will feature (free!) live music and performances.
Musikfest takes place at two locations—SteelStacks on Bethlehem’s south side and the Colonial Industrial Quarter on the northern side of the Lehigh River.
Goschenhoppen Folk Festival – Perkiomenville (Montgomery County)
Dates: Friday, Aug. 7 and Saturday, Aug. 8
Enjoy traditional food, handmade crafts, and folk music at the Goschenhoppen Folk Festival in Montgomery County, where more than 500 volunteers in period clothing will demonstrate what Pennsylvania German life was like in the 1700s and 1800s. Taking place at the Henry Antes Plantation in Perkiomenville, the 2026 event will be the folk festival’s 58th year. Tickets include access to living history programs, dozens of demonstrations, delicious Pennsylvania Dutch eats, and live performances.
CelebrateErie – Erie
Dates: Friday, Aug. 14 to Sunday, Aug. 16
CelebrateErie is the Erie region’s largest festival, a three-day event celebrating—what else?—the culture, food, and community of the city of Erie. The festival brings dozens of live performances, food vendors, and activities to downtown Erie, with easy access to festival events at the Erie Art Museum, expERIEnce Children’s Museum, and a number of downtown businesses.
La Festa Italiana – Scranton
Dates: Friday, Sept. 4 to Monday, Sept. 7
Scranton’s La Festa Italiana attracts more than 100,000 people each year to celebrate Italian culture through food, music, entertainment, and community connections. The four-day festival is centered within downtown Scranton’s Courthouse Square, meant to evoke a piazza, the open town square in Italian communities. Italian vocalists, heritage dance troupes, and local bands perform for the crowd while vendors hawk traditional Italian cuisine, including coffee drinks at the festival’s cappuccino tent. And on Sunday morning, the festival hosts a Catholic Mass in Italian.
The 2026 Labor Day weekend festival will be La Festa’s 50th incarnation.
Ketone senior newsletter editor Patrick Berkery contributed to this report.
