One of the biggest traditions in the Sunshine State is back: The Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City returns February 29 through March 10 to 303 BerryFest Place. Each spring, more than 500,000 visitors make the trip out to Plant City for wild rides, performances, and inventive strawberry-based treats. Tickets, venue info, parking and hours can be seen on the festival’s website.
Side note: when you’re on your way to the event, stop by The Strawberry Hut for one of the best Cuban sandwiches in Florida.
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“The sky’s the limit,” said Florida Strawberry Festival President Kyle Robinson. “Our board of directors, staff, and maintenance crew have been hard at work this summer planning and preparing an ‘out of this world’ experience for all our guests. We look forward to welcoming visitors from far and wide to BerryFest24!”
An out-of-this-world theme for 2024
A new theme is created for each Festival to offer patrons a glimpse of the experience they will have at the 11-day event. It also unifies vendors, FFA chapters, organizations, corporate partners, and exhibitors, who create parade floats and displays throughout the event.
The Florida Strawberry Festival represents a piece of Americana, a time in American history when fairs and festivals brought communities together through celebrations of their harvests. It has continued to grow in popularity year after year through the preservation of this heritage. Central to its focus, the Festival continues to preserve and enhance the agricultural and historical legacy of the Florida strawberry.
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Musicians, water shows, exhibits, magicians, big wheels and so much more comprise this year’s lineup of new free entertainment. An assortment of hearty eats and sweet strawberry treats top the list of new foods.
New rides and desserts arrive at Strawberry Festival
“New food, new entertainment, new rides, new vendors, and our new Special Smiles Day event – this year is exceptional,” said Florida Strawberry Festival President Paul Davis. “Many vendors have brought back their staple food items, we all know King Strawberry Shortcake is paramount, and the southern hospitality here can’t be beat!”
One of the biggest attractions is the Berry Big Wheel. The Berry Big Wheel features 36 fully enclosed, colorful gondolas, each holding up to six riders and accessible seating is available. The wheel spins happy riders for a full ten minutes and costs $7 per person. Weighing 400,000 pounds and towering 15 stories high, the wheel is strung with 528,000 eye-catching, vibrant, energy-saving LED lights. The Berry Big Wheel is located on East Independent, near Neighborhood Village, and sponsored by The Bank of Tampa.
Huge concert lineup for the Strawberry Festival
You can also anticipate dining on strawberry shortcakes, deep fried strawberry shortcake cookie dough bites, chocolate-covered strawberry slush, golden strawberry parfait, donuts, funnel cakes, corn dogs, assorted pies, fresh lemonade, strawberry crunch waffle cones, and so much more during your visit. Big rides and even bigger musical acts are also set for the 11-day extravaganza.
You can see the full entertainment calendar online. Here are just a few headline acts that we can’t wait to see live:
The Beach Boys
March 1
3:30pm
Black Eyed Peas
March 2
7:30pm
ZZ Top
March 4
7:30pm
Kirk Franklin
March 7
7:30pm
The Commodores
March 8
3:30pm
Foreigner
March 8
7:30pm
Flo Rida
March 9
7:30pm
The event takes place at 303 BerryFest Place from February 29 through March 10 in Plant City. Tickets can be reserved in advance online.
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