New name is “Morgan Hill Mushroom Festival”; it will take place May 27-28
Photo by Marty Cheek
At the 2014 festival, Alivia Irvine (left), 5, and Trinity Lucero, 8, learn about mushrooms at the Rotary Club of Morgan Hill’s mushroom education booth.
Press release submitted to Morgan Hill Life on January 28,2023
The South Valley’s festival of fungi will return May 27-28 with a “rebranding” that has a new name. Drumroll please. It’s now called the Morgan Hill Mushroom Festival.
Over the past 41 years the Morgan Hill Mushroom Mardi Gras Festival has been a tradition in the commuity, enhancing its lifestyle, vitality, quality of life and economic prosperity for our community.
Since the tragic Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting in 2019, the face of festivals is continually changing. Many food festivals did not survive after the two-year hiatus from the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Luckily, we were able to continue our festival in 2022, returning with our most successful festival since moving to Downtown Morgan Hill in 2005. But it didn’t look like that was going to last. We were told that 2022 would be our last festival downtown due to safety concerns with our current layout and we would have to look at other options. Because the Board of Directors weren’t ready to call it quits, we started looking at other locations to hold the festival but none met our needs.
We met once again with the City of Morgan Hill and MHPD to present a plan to keep the festival downtown. We proposed a new name, layout and theme that would emphasize Morgan Hill as the Mushroom Capital of the Western United States and focus more on a food, art, wine & entertainment festival.
After the MHPD’s review and analysis of our new proposed location, MHPD presented a preliminary assessment following the Department of Justice’s published framework Planning and Managing Security for Major Special Events: Guidelines for Law Enforcement with strict requirements to continue holding the festival downtown.
Photo by Marty Cheek
The preliminary assessment listed two pages of requirements we would have to fulfill, increasing our guest safety costs for City Services from $33,000 in 2022, to approximately $90,000. The requirements of the assessment forces us to provide perimeter fencing around our new festival layout at the Community Cultural Center (CCC) and areas of Monterey Road, Dunne Avenue and the CCC parking lot.
Unfortunately, we are also forced to charge admission for the first time since 2004, which admission alone barely covers the increased costs of everything it takes to put on a great festival and fulfill our mission of supporting education in our community.
But we feel confident that with the community’s support, we can raise enough money to continue to support our educators, schools, youth sports and non-profit organizations who count on our festival for their fundraising efforts and student scholarship program.
Attendees will still enjoy the many activities and attractions the festival has always provided over the past 41 years including shopping at over 150 Arts & Craft and Retail Booths, Premium Wine Tasting in a private setting, Gourmet Food Booths with Mushroom inspired dishes, Beer & Wine Gardens, Top Notch Entertainment on two stages, Chef Demonstrations on our cooking stage, Mushroom Expo, Strolling entertainment and Munchkinland for the kids.
As the Mushroom Capital of the Western United States, let’s not forget the festival star – The Mushroom. Visit our Mushroom Exhibition including Chef Demonstrations by local and celebrity chefs, Mushroom vendors and educational exhibits. And with 2 food courts, you will enjoy mushroom inspired dishes that can be tasted in soup, stuffed, sandwiched, deep-fried, marinated, over rice and much more.
Photo by Marty Cheek
Erica Clarkson, visiting the Mardi Gras from Belmont, dances with Morgan Hill resident Maya Delacruz, age 6.
This year’s entertainment is sure to please with a great line-up of music on two stages and strolling entertainment. Saturday will have back-to-back returns with Shane Dwight and the Joe Sharino Band as our Saturday headliner and Sunday’s headliner is the hottest dance band in the Bay Area, The Party Starters.
The mission of the Morgan Hill Mushroom Mardi Gras, Inc. (a non-profit 501(c)3 organization), is to provide a fun and entertaining family festival with an emphasis on promoting the mushroom and educating consumers about the health benefits of mushrooms, all while financially awarding scholarships to high school seniors living within the boundaries of the Morgan Hill Unified School District and monetary donations to school groups and clubs.
The festival has awarded $1.5 million in scholarships and over $550,000 to local non-profits, school groups and youth sports over the past thirty-nine years and, since the mini grant inception in 2008, $57,000 to elementary and middles schools for special projects. This year the Board of Directors voted to award $18,000 in scholarships to seniors who reside in the Morgan Hill Unified School District. If you are interested in donating to our scholarship fund or becoming a sponsor to help support the festival, please call (408) 778-1786 or download our sponsor benefits packet on our website at www.mhmmg.org. As a 501(c)3 charitable organization, your donation is tax deductible.
Hours are 10am – 7pm on Saturday and 10am – 6pm on Sunday. General Admission is $15. Seniors and Military $10 and kids under 12 FREE. Tickets will go on sale in late February. Look for special $5 off discount coupons for advance ticket sales.
