The Lehigh Daily reports that the flyer for Emmaus's Farewell to Summer Festival says 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. That is the correct answer if you are asking specifically about Triangle Park, where Emmaus Main Street Partners sets up craft vendors, food trucks and the Scarecrow Trail on Saturday, September 19. That four-hour window is only one part of the day.
Walk two blocks to the Emmaus Historical Society on Main Street and the museum opens at 10 a.m., a full hour before the vendors at the Triangle even finish setting up. Head the other direction to Yergey Brewing and Yergfest runs from noon until 11 p.m., with live music beginning as the Triangle Park festival wraps and a later set from 7 to 10 p.m. Three locations, three separate clocks, one Saturday. The flyer lists Triangle Park's hours; the Historical Society and Yergfest have separate schedules.
What's New This Year
This year's festival is also physically bigger than it has been. For the first time, the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce has expanded the footprint into the borough-owned Wells Fargo parking lot, giving organizers room for activities that would not have fit in Triangle Park alone. That includes a Touch-a-Truck experience with the Emmaus fire and police departments and a free tie-dye station.
The Scarecrow Trail is back too, this year sponsored by United Federal Credit Union. Kids collect one of ten puzzle pieces at downtown stops to fill out a trail passport, and completed passports go into a raffle for fifty dollars in gift cards to local businesses. Passports become available starting September 11, eight days before the festival, through the chamber's event page.
The Historical Society's Festival-Day Hours
The festival itself runs four hours. The Emmaus Historical Society's separate schedule covers another part of the day. Its museum, on the grounds at 218 Main Street, opens at 10 a.m. and stays open until 4 p.m., an hour before Triangle Park opens and an hour after it closes. If you have ever wanted to see the historical society's exhibits without competing with festival foot traffic, this is the built-in window. You get sixty quiet minutes before the crowds arrive and another sixty after they've thinned out.
What Happens After the Festival Ends
The bigger surprise is what happens after 3 p.m. Yergfest at Yergey Brewing is programmed as its own full day, running from noon to 11 p.m., and its lineup is split into two distinct moods. Island Time plays from 3 to 5 p.m., right as the Triangle Park festival is packing up, giving the afternoon a soft handoff from family event to neighborhood hangout. Then Dishonest Fiddlers take over from 7 to 10 p.m., well after dark, for anyone who wants the day to end with a longer set rather than a 3 p.m. cutoff.
Here's the day laid out side by side:
| Location | Hours | What's happening |
|---|---|---|
| Emmaus Historical Society, 218 Main St | 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. | Museum open to the public |
| Triangle Park & Wells Fargo lot, Fourth and Main | 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Craft vendors, food trucks, Scarecrow Trail, Touch-a-Truck, tie-dye station |
| Yergey Brewing (Yergfest) | Noon to 11 p.m. | Island Time (3-5 p.m.), Dishonest Fiddlers (7-10 p.m.) |
Laid out this way, the advertised festival hours are actually the shortest window of the three. If your Saturday plan starts at 11 and ends at 3, you're spending four hours within a day that runs from 10 in the morning until 11 at night.
Why the Wells Fargo Lot Matters More Than It Sounds
An extra parking lot sounds like a logistics footnote, but it changes how the day flows for anyone who has attended in past years. Triangle Park is a small, walkable space, and in previous years the crowd density there was the whole experience: craft booths, food trucks and kids running the Scarecrow Trail all packed into one park and the surrounding sidewalks. Spreading the Touch-a-Truck and tie-dye station into the adjacent lot means those activities finally have their own footprint instead of competing for space with vendor tables. If you've skipped this festival in past years because the Triangle felt too tight for a family with young kids, this is the year that changes.
If You're Only Free for Part of the Day
Not everyone has a full Saturday to give to this. Here's how to match the parts of the day to what you actually want out of it:
- Want to beat the crowd entirely? Go to the Emmaus Historical Society at 10 a.m., a full hour before Triangle Park opens, and you'll have the exhibits mostly to yourself.
- Have young kids chasing the Scarecrow Trail? Download the passport starting September 11 so you're not trying to figure out the app or the download link while standing in the middle of the festival.
- Prefer a quieter stop than Triangle Park? The Wells Fargo lot activities are brand new this year and likely to be less packed than Triangle Park itself, at least for this first year.
- Want live music that doesn't end at 3 p.m.? Skip the early afternoon and time your Yergey Brewing visit around Dishonest Fiddlers from 7 to 10 p.m., well after the festival crowd has cleared out of downtown.
The Day Is Bigger Than the Name Suggests
"Farewell to Summer Festival" implies one event with one start time and one end time. What's actually happening on September 19 is three separate calendars that happen to share a Saturday: a civic celebration that opens and closes on its own hours, a family festival that runs the shortest window of the three, and a brewery event that starts after the festival begins and ends long after it closes. Each flyer focuses on its own event; together, the schedules show the day's options. Read together, they tell you that the real festival day in Emmaus starts at 10 in the morning and doesn't wrap until 11 at night, whether or not you ever set foot in Triangle Park itself.
If you live in Emmaus, you know the value of paying attention to local details. That's the same approach Lori Bartkus brings to helping neighbors buy, sell and prepare homes across Emmaus and the wider Lehigh Valley. Whether you're weighing a move within town or just want a straight answer about what your street is really like day to day, Let's Connect.
