Holmes County Art Festival returns to downtown Millersburg in September

Shoppers, artists and diners will crowd Historic Downtown Millersburg on Saturday, Sept. 12, when the 5th Annual Holmes County Art Festival takes over the downtown area from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The juried event will bring regional and local artists, live entertainment, food trucks, performances and more into the heart of Millersburg.

Historic Downtown Millersburg calls the festival one of its favorite events, and the setup is built to do more than fill a Saturday calendar. The festival gives artists a platform to promote and sell their work while sending visitors into the businesses clustered around the Holmes County Courthouse and across the walkable downtown square.

The event also adds a live-making element that helps set it apart from a simple market. The Ohio Plein Air Society will return to downtown Millersburg, painting throughout the village and across Holmes County, giving visitors a chance to watch finished work develop in real time. That kind of activity fits the downtown district’s broader identity as a place where browsing, dining and gallery-hopping happen in the same trip.

The festival has also grown into one of the regular anchors of the downtown calendar. Earlier branding used the name Art in the Burg, and a 2024 chamber listing tied the event to partnerships with New Towne Gallery, the Ohio Plein Air Society, Holmes Center for the Arts and others. By 2026, the listing is calling it the fifth annual festival, pointing to a run that appears to have started around 2022.

Historic Downtown Millersburg says its member businesses sit within a walkable square mile of the courthouse, which makes the festival a natural fit for the village’s street-level layout. The organization describes its mission as Preserving Heritage, Inviting Exploration, and its history page notes that Millersburg’s public square has anchored civic life for more than 200 years. The art festival uses that setting to pull people downtown, keep them moving from block to block and give local artists and businesses a shared day in the spotlight.

Alongside recurring events such as Girls Night Out, Hop Around Millersburg, Thunder Over Holmes County and the Chocolate Walk, the art festival helps keep the historic center active through the year. On Sept. 12, the courthouse square will again serve as both stage and storefront, with art and foot traffic working together to shape downtown Millersburg’s appeal.