Florence Rhododendron Festival starts Thursday with four days of events

Florence’s waterfront and Old Town are set for a busy stretch as the 119th Rhododendron Festival opens Thursday, bringing four days of parades, rides, live entertainment, classic cars, arts and crafts and shopping to one of the coast’s biggest weekends of the year.

The festival is widely described as Oregon’s largest annual event and one of the state’s longest-running floral festivals, a scale that helps explain why it still reaches well beyond Florence. What began as a parade in 1906 has grown into Rhody Fest, a tradition that now draws visitors, spending and traffic into the city’s commercial core and gives local businesses a seasonal lift.

This year’s theme is Tee-Moo Hee-Such, Hi, which translates to A Gathering With a Good Heart. Organizers said the theme was gifted by the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, and festival organizers Bettina Hannigan, Mitzi Hathaway, Shaun Brown, Ryan Bonham and Madison Yeash said the logo and theme are meant to reflect tribal history and culture. The event also includes the coronation of Queen Rhododendra and the King of the Coast, and scholarship money was awarded during this year’s coronation event.

The schedule gives visitors several anchor points across the weekend. The carnival begins Thursday, the vendor fair runs Friday through Sunday, the car show is Saturday and the Grand Floral Parade is Sunday. A rhododendron show and plant sale are set for the Florence Event Center, adding a horticulture piece to a festival that mixes pageantry with a community market and civic celebration.

Earlier coverage from the Florence Area Chamber of Commerce said the festival was expected to draw about 35,000 visitors in 2024. Organizers have also said Rhody Fest serves as the unofficial kickoff to the summer tourist season and generates about $320 million for the local economy while employing about 2,700 of Florence’s 5,000 workers.

For Lane County residents headed to the coast, the message is simple: Florence will be crowded, Old Town will be active and the festival will once again shape the pace of the city for the weekend.