The New Castle County Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Festival is only selling tickets online this year.
Ice cream or Swedish meatballs?
That’s the decision festival goers will have to make Saturday, June, 25, as both the New Castle County’s Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Festival at Rockford Park and the first Midsommar Festival at the Old Swedes Historic Site compete for your summer fun attention.
There’s music, vendors and food at both.
But only one has ice cream, and the other a Swedish meatball cooking competition.
The Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Festival returns Saturday, June 25.
Ice cream festival
Heads up: The Ice Cream Festival is going cashless for admission.
Tickets must be bought online, and the county is pushing people to buy in advance. Those who arrive without tickets will be able to buy them at the gate, but will have to do it online there, too.
Go here to buy the $5 tickets, which have an additional 75 cent processing fee per ticket. Kids 12 and under are free.
Vendors will each decide whether they take cash or not, a county spokesman said.
The ice cream festival will run from 1 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. with fireworks at dusk.
The county discourages people from parking on the roadside in nearby neighborhoods.
Parking, including handicapped, will be the Rockwood Office Park, 501 Carr Road. Quick shuttles will take people to the site, and they will be equipped with lifts for wheelchairs and large strollers.
Parking also will open at 5 p.m. at Mount Pleasant High School at 5201 Washington St.Extension.
Burgers, barbecue, pizza and chicken also will be available, with suds for sale at the Wilmington Brew Works tent.
Children’s entertainment and music starts at 1 p.m. and fireworks will be at dusk.
The Midsommar Festival will be Old Swedes’ first stab at an ethnic fair.
Midsommar Festival
The Old Swedes Historic Site wanted to celebrate its ethnic roots just like those sponsoring the Greek, Italian and Polish festivals.
The Midsommar Festival, which takes its name from annual summer solstice events in Sweden, will include folk music performances, food trucks, a beer garden, cornhole, flower crown crafting and the Xperience Drum Corps from nearby River of Love Christian Center.
A key component of the festival is the Swedish meatball competition.
Admission is free to the festival, which will run from noon to 4 p.m. Food, drink and artisan wares will be for sale and four vendors will be showing and selling their wares.
The festival activities will be spread out over the property at 606 N. Church St., Wilmington
Beer and wine will be served out of the community services building, which is also where the meatball contest will take place.
