30,000 People Visit Downtown Warwick for Yearly Applefest

WARWICK, N.Y.—Downtown Warwick closed its streets on Oct. 4 to host the biggest annual single-day festival in Orange County, continuing the tradition first established in 1989.

Applefest highlighted Warwick’s historic buildings, local businesses, and orchards. It featured multiple all-day music stages, a children’s carnival, and a farmer’s market with games and bouncy houses. Local businesses also hosted their own music or events for visitors to drop in on.

“It’s just a really great event to showcase our town. It takes place in the heart of the village of Warwick, so you get to come here, experience vendors, and you get to explore our incredible Main Street,” Stefanie Keegan Craver, executive director of the Warwick Valley Chamber of Commerce, told The Epoch Times at the festival.

The chamber’s Applefest committee is the organizing body for the event.

Visitors parked at the local elementary and middle schools and were bussed in to Warwick, where six streets were closed to host around 30,000 visitors, 200 craft vendors, and more than 90 food vendors.

The day was characterized by misty rain and warm temperatures, causing some to open umbrellas and put on hoods. Most chose to face the wet unbothered.

Railroad Avenue was the center of food vendors, where several restaurants reside across the street from the old rail line and station. The street smelled chiefly of apple cider donuts.

There was a classic New York hot dog stand, a pickle-tasting stall, a crab cake vendor, and many more offerings. A stage was set up at the Railroad Green, where performances, including a youth garage band, took place all day.

Craver said that the festival brings attention to the town’s many orchards, which grow apples, blueberries, strawberries, and other produce.

“We do find folks come back to the orchard, and they’re like, ‘I didn’t know you were here, but I went to Apple Fest,’” she said.

The same applies for local businesses, Craver said.

“You can live in New York City and get anything you want, but you can’t find the incredible array of unique, beautiful, wonderful things [found in Warwick] … anywhere,” she said.

Craver described the different sentiments among Warwick locals regarding the festival.

“Some locals, you know, they say they ‘shelter in place’ on Applefest day,” she said.

“One of our sponsors—he’s like, ‘I’ve been avoiding this for 30 years, and now I’m here, and it’s really great.’”

The village of Warwick has more than 7,000 residents, according to the 2020 census, the most recent data available.

Craver said Applefest—one of the largest festivals in Orange County—is held only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on one day a year.

Baneza Padilla, a registered nurse from Wallkill, visited the festival for the third year.

“I love the festival. I feel like it’s a very quaint vibe,” Padilla told The Epoch Times. “Everybody comes from all over the place. There’s so much culture here. It’s a very fall experience. Like, if you want the Hudson Valley experience, this is the place to be.”

She came with her fiancé to experience what she called “Hudson Valley fall vibes” and try the bars.

“Eight X Sand—I love that place. CBC, the grilled cheeses, 100 percent get those grilled cheeses—I love that place,” she said.

Alisa Fierro from Greenwood Lake, New Jersey, and Alfredo Troetsch from West Milford, Pennsylvania, visited for the first time with a group of friends and found it a great place to try new things.

“It was a nice mix of everything. Nice vendors, a lot of samples, which I appreciated, and we bought a lot of stuff today because of the vendors,” Fierro told The Epoch Times.

“I brought three jars of sangria today that I never thought I would ever buy, but they were delicious. [The vendor] told us how he made it [and] where it came from. It was a nice experience.”

Troetsch said, “It gives you the perspective of variety and things you may not try or search for, and then these vendors offer those free samples, and you’re like, ‘Wait, where did that come from?’”

He highlighted the pickle vendor and a special sandwich combo he tried.

“If you have a peanut butter sandwich and you want to put grapes in it, [it] doesn’t sound right. And then you come here, and they give you something strange like that, and then actually you’re like, ‘Wow, that’s actually pretty good,’” he said. “I don’t like peanut butter. And then I tried this guy’s nutter thing, and it was amazing.”

Troetsch said he usually goes to Musikfest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

“My wife said, ‘This is like Musikfest 15 minutes from the house.’ And it really is, with the different tents and the vendors and the live music, all that stuff is excellent,” he said.