Michigan has hundreds of festivals planned each year. Since tulips are one of the earliest flowers to emerge in the spring, a tulip festival was created in the city of Holland, Michigan. This event in the early 1900s turned in to one of the largest tulip festivals in the world. There is also a Blossomtime Festival in southern Michigan that blesses the beginning of the fruit season. A Lilac Festival on Mackinac Island kicks off the summer flowering season.
The Tulip Time Festival in Holland, Michigan, is one of the largest festivals in Michigan and one of the largest in the world celebrating tulips. Only in the Netherlands do they have festivals celebrating the tulip that are bigger. The Tulip Time Festival features a parade, contests, kids' events, concerts, displays and tulip competitions. The festival is planned months in advance, since there are such large crowds to accommodate. Since a float promoting the Tulip Festival was in the Rose Bowl Parade back in 1976, visitors have numbered close to 500,000 people each year.
The Lilac Festival is now a 10-day event on Mackinac Island. It began after a conversation in 1949 between people who decided to have a parade on Lilac Sunday, which used to be a one-day festival for residents of the island. They wanted more people to come and visit the island, so they added a parade, and later contests and events were added to the festival. Today's festival has a parade, pageant queens, flower tours, teas, gallery exhibits, gardener talks, art shows and activities for the kids. The festival is held each year in mid to early June, when the lilacs are usually in bloom.
The Blossomtime Festival in Benton Harbor, Michigan, celebrates fruit tree blossoms. The festival began celebrating the beginning of what hoped to be a large and propserous fruit season back in 1906. A church minister named Rev. WJ Cady preached a sermon to his congregation, which encouraged them to drive to nearby orchards and view the beautiful blossoms. The next year, more activities were added and it became a festival, growing bigger each year.
Now, the Blossomtime Festival is celebrated in mid to late April with pageants, food contests and kids' events. The kickoff to the celebration each year is the blessing of the blossoms, which is intended to help the fruit crop. Rounding out the celebrations is the Grand Floral Parade, which is held on the first Saturday in May.
