Image provided by the Town of Hudson: Vendor booths lined Mainstreet during the 2019 North Carolina Butterfly Festival
HUDSON- Caldwell County’s oldest festival is set to return after a three year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The North Carolina Butterfly Festival, named after the migration of butterflies that pass through Caldwell County during the month of May, will be from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 7, on Mainstreet in Hudson.
Keith Smith, who directs Hudson's dinner theatre program, as well as handles customer service for the Town of Hudson, said, “It is so refreshing to try to resume some semblance of normalcy."
“The North Carolina Butterfly Festival is special because it brings the residents of our small town together with lots of visitors from out of town, even out of state,” Smith said. “The festival brings a combination of business, fun, food and fellowship into the town for the day.”
In years prior, the festival has attracted up to 10,000 attendees to the small town of Hudson and offers a variety of family friendly fun.
“During the festival over the years, we’ve had lots of butterfly games and sale items, we’ve sold plants that are frequented by butterflies, we’ve given out lots of interesting facts about butterflies…We’ve released butterflies into the air,” Smith said.
This year the festival will include over 80 vendors with a mix of craft booths, food vendors, and informational booths.
“There will be face painting and children’s games, a big inflatable slide, a bouncy house and a maze and our town public works department will provide rides on an old town fire engine,” he said.
This festival will also include an official Little Miss and Teen North Carolina Preliminary Pageant, coordinated by Mrs. Carolyn Marley, the Little Miss North Carolina Pageant Director.
The featured entertainment of the 2022 North Carolina Butterfly festival will be a musical performance by the band Rustic.
“They are in big demand in our area,” smith said. “They are comprised of Ritch and Shae Bolick, Chad Raby and Mike Hodges.”
Smith says an added benefit to the festival are the connections and reconnections made on Mainstreet.
“In small towns, people know one another. Ritch Bolick is the former police chief of our neighboring town, Granite Falls, Chad Raby is the recreation director for the Town of Granite Falls, and his brother, Chuck, is our recreation director,” he said. “I went to school with Mike Hodges and he and I were in the last graduating class of Hudson, before it consolidated with Granite Falls to become South Caldwell High School.”
For more information on the pageant, vendor space, and entertainment, visit https://townofhudsonnc.com/