Tomato Festivals in the U.S., Canada and Britain!

Where, When and More to Find an Tomato Festival Near You!

Look for a tomato festival? There is no other listing as complete and current as this list, just updated for this year. All the tomato festivals in the US, Canada and Britain we can find are listed on this page! If you love tomatoes, look for a festival near you below! And I'm looking for more tomato festivals! Please write me, if you know of any to add! I will update it for next year as soon as the festivals publish their information.

Always click on the links (the blue, underlined name of the each festival) to confirm this year's dates on the website for each festival. If they don't have a website, call the phone number provided, but ALWAYS CONFIRM THIS YEAR'S DATES AND TIMES BY EITHER VIEWING THEIR WEBSITE OR CALLING.

Also, see our pages on easy illustrated directions about

For other fruit and vegetable festivals, see this page!

[United States] [Canada] [Britain] [Australia] [Japan]

United States

Know of any others? Write me!

Alabama

Alaska

Arkansas

Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival - June.
All-tomato luncheon, and Miss Pink Tomato and Miss Petite Pink Tomato beauty contests. Warren, Ark.; 870/226-5225.

California

Kendall-Jackson Tomato Festival -
Phone: (800) 544-4413, ext. 770.
Tomato - July - This one may no longer exist - their website is junk advertisements
Yuba City, CA.
Tomatofest - September (in 2008, September 14th)
Carmel, CA. The 17th annual NatureSweet Carmel TomatoFest®, "America's Favorite Tomato Harvest Festival", will be held at 12:30 pm, Sunday, September 14, 2008 at the spectacular countryside setting of Quail Lodge Resort in Carmel, California. What started out 17 years ago as a small get together for my family and a few chef friends, as a 'backyard' tomato tasting event to celebrate my tomato harvest, has grown into an annual fundraiser that attracts chefs, wineries, tomato growers and 3000 tomato lovers from across the United States and other nations. They offer a display of more than 350 heirloom tomato varieties from around the world for the tasting; tomato dishes created by 60 of America's top chefs; a tasting of more than 100 premium wines; an amazing "Salsa Showcase" tasting of 100, commercially available, tomato salsas; an old-fashioned country BBQ; an "International Olive Oil Tasting;" celebrity chef and gardening demonstrations; a tasting of great tomato-related specialty foods; sales of hard-to-find fresh heirloom tomatoes and heirloom tomato seeds; live music and dancing under Carmel Valley's oak covered hillsides. Check out these photos of the Carmel TomatoFest®. Ticket price includes all foods, wines and activities. Children under 12, with parent, are admitted free. Ticket prices for 2008 range from $85 to $175 per person. Come bring the whole family! We have delights for the kids too. Net proceeds benefit youth charities
Kendall-Jackson Heirloom Tomato Festival - Saturday, September 6, 2008 • 11am - 4pm
Santa Rosa, CA. General Admission: $55.00 per person (Children under 12 are free). Wine Club Members: $50.00 per person (limit 2 per membership). Wine Club members are invited to our Wine Club tent (limit 2 per membership). Purchase your tickets today online or by phone at 800-769-3649. If ordering online, select UPS Ground Shipping and tickets will be mailed to you at no charge. (Not available when combined with wine or merchandise purchases). If purchased on or after 7/1/08: General Admission: $65.00 per person (Children under 12 are free) Wine Club Members: $60.00 per person (limit 2 per membership).

Colorado

Connecticut

Florida

Georgia

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Louisiana

Massachusetts

Maine

Michigan

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Great Tomato Festival - August 24.
Minot, ND. Phone: 701/857-8206. Tomato picnic and Dixieland jazz.

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Pittston Tomato Festival - Thursday, August 21st through Sunday, 24th, 2008
35 Broad Street, Pittston, PA 18640. Phone: 570-655-1424. Email: Lori Nocito. The Annual Pittston Tomato Festival will be held in downtown Pittston. Over fifty thousand people will attend the four-day event that has been touted as one of the best festivals in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Delicious food, a variety of live entertainment, a parade, 5K run, games, rides, arts and crafts, bingo and of course home-grown Pittston tomatoes keep bringing an enthusiastic crowd to the festival year after year. Don't miss the Tomato Fights, which will be held on Saturday, August 23rd at 1:30 p.m. in the parking lot of Cooper's on the Waterfront Restaurant, 304 Kennedy Blvd., Pittston. The entry fee is $5, which includes use of protective eye goggles. All proceeds will benefit local charities.

Rhode Island

South Carolina

Tennessee

Grainger County Tomato Festival - Friday July 25th to Sunday July 27 (in 2008, see their website for other years)
Rutledge, TN 37861. The Grainger County Tomato Festival has a wide variety of entertainment for your enjoyment all weekend. From Bluegrass to Elvis, from clogging to line dancing. With so much to choose from, you might want to visit all three stages. Be sure to check out the entertainment line up for each stage when we get closer to festival time.
Lauderdale County Tomato Festival - Mid July
Ripley, Tennessee. In addition to a tomato contest and an attempt to break the record for the "World's Longest 'Mater Sandwich", festival events have included carnival rides, an exhibit of "special treasures", and a display of antique cards. The festival began in 1984, being held at the town square. Events have included local talent, tomato tasting, and fun activities for children. The festival will offer a variety of events to please the tastes of most any age. It will include a Carnival, Arts and Crafts, Food, Main Stage Entertainment, Golf Tournament,
Tomato Tasting, Baby Crawling Contest, Petting Zoo, Saturday Salad, Action Pistol Shooting
Contest, 5K Run/Walk and a Chamber Coffee hosted by the City of Ripley . The headliner on
Saturday night from 8-11 p.m. is “Burning Las Vegas.” The festival will also showcase local talent at various times. To sign up, call the Chamber at 635-9541. The festival will be held at the City Park in Ripley located on Mary
Roberts Drive (right off Hwy 51 S). The festival is sponsored by the Lauderdale Chamber/ECD.

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

First Annual EastMont Tomato Festival - August 9, 2008, 10 am to 2 pm
Meadowbrook Center, Shawsville, Va. For more information, call 540.268.2879 or e-mail Michael Hemphill, Executive Director, Mountain Valley Charitable Foundation, Inc., at hemphills4@yahoo.com. There will be contests for best-tasting, biggest and funniest-looking tomatoes, along with best BBQ sauce, pasta sauce, ketchup, salsa, tomato recipe, fried green tomato, and tomato artwork, also a Tomato Queen, tomato juggling, a tomato catapult, The Tomato Opera, and some musical tomato jams.
Thomas Jefferson's Tomatoe Faire - August 6.
Lynchburg, VA. Phone: 434/384-8317. Displays of horticulture, awarding of ribbons, tomato sandwiches.

Washington, D.C.

Washington State

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Know of any? Write me!

Canada

British Columbia

Manitoba

Nova Scotia

Ontario

Britain (England, Scotland and Wales)

Australia

Italy

Japan

(English websites)

Spain

Buñol in eastern Spain - Last Wednesday in August
Billed as the world's biggest food fight. It takes place at the Plaza Del Pueblo, Buñol, Spain. Preceded by a week-long local festival in honor of the town's patron saint, San Luis Bertràn, and the Virgin Mary. The actual tomato fight lasts for only two hours between 11am and 1pm. All week long there are parades, fireworks, music, dancing and the paella cook-off contest draw visitors to Buñol for the annual fiesta. When the day of the great battle dawns, local shopkeepers diligently cover their shop fronts with sheets of plastic and twenty thousand local folk and tourists take to the streets, as trucks loaded with around 125,000 kilos of ripe ammo roll into the Plaza del Pueblo. Between 11am and 1pm, the streets are covered with tomato juice, spattered with pulp and the participants coated in the mess. The first Tomatina took place in 1945, but no-one seems to know exactly how it all started. Some say it began as a fracas between a group of friends, others claim the tradition was started at an anti-Franco rally. One of the most likely accounts is that brawling bystanders at a carnival parade seized the contents of a nearby vegetable stall, and began throwing tomatoes at their opponents. Initially the authorities did their best to ban what quickly became an annual battle, but in 1959 they eventually entered into the spirit of the event and it became an institution. For more information about La Tomatina and the town of Buñol, contact the Ayuntamiento de Buñol Tel: +34 96 250 01 51 / Fax: +34 96 250 3083