Sober living nonprofit Serenity Street Foundation is bringing its 14th annual Soberfest Ohio back to the Franklin County Fairgrounds on September 6, running from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. with free admission, live music, comedy and a resource fair built for people in every stage of recovery. The daylong event in Hilliard is designed to prove that getting sober doesn't mean giving up a good time.
According to CW Columbus, Serenity Street Foundation said the festival gives people in or early in sobriety a chance to enjoy live music and have a great time while sober. The nonprofit itself is a Columbus-based, faith-rooted 501(c)(3) founded in 1996 that runs structured sober living housing, 12-step programming and employment training for men battling addiction, according to Serenity Street Foundation.
The lineup leans on artists whose own recovery stories give the festival its emotional center. Headliner Colicchie, born Chas Smith in Pittsburgh, built a national following after his 2017 semi-autobiographical song “Drug Addiction” drew more than 15 million YouTube views by recounting his struggle with severe heroin addiction and his path to recovery, per Apple Music. The rest of the day's music comes from alternative and rock acts Whirl, Rock This Way, Pilot to Pluto, Mark Chatfield and Jon Oswald, according to the same CW Columbus report.
A Comedian With Decades of Sober Time on Stage
Also featured is Mark Lundholm, a recovery-themed comedian, speaker and author who is sharing a message of experience, strength and hope with the crowd, per CW Columbus. Lundholm is a former addict and homeless ex-convict with more than 30 years in recovery who wrote the book “Shortcuts: Better Ways to Better Days” and built clinical-comical workshops now used in treatment centers nationwide, according to Faces & Voices of Recovery.
Kids aren't an afterthought at Soberfest Ohio. The event's family-friendly KidsZone runs between noon and 4 p.m. on September 6 and features balloon artistry, face painting, magic shows and a two-hour petting zoo, per CW Columbus. Local food trucks will also be on-site throughout the day.
More Than 70 Vendors Anchor the Resource Fair
Beyond the entertainment, the festival's resource fair brings together more than 70 vendors, including treatment centers, wellness organizations and medical professionals, according to CW Columbus. Organizers describe the whole event as intended to show that sobriety allows for a full life, not a diminished one.
The event builds on more than a decade of local turnout. The 13th annual Soberfest, held August 31, 2025 at the same fairgrounds, drew hundreds of attendees and featured personal testimonies from Central Ohioans marking months and years of sobriety, as reported by WBNS-TV. Attendees at last year's festival credited drug-free community gatherings with reinforcing their recovery journeys.
Why the Turnout Matters Beyond One Day
The celebration lands against a backdrop of real, if uneven, progress on overdose deaths in Central Ohio. The Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board of Franklin County reported that local drug overdose deaths dropped from 731 in 2022 to 701 in 2023, the county's lowest annual overdose mortality level since before the pandemic, according to the ADAMH Board of Franklin County. Statewide, the Ohio Department of Health reported unintentional overdose deaths fell 34% from 2023 to 2024, down to 2,931 fatalities, though fentanyl or fentanyl analogs remained involved in 69% of those deaths.
Even so, local public health assessments released in July identified accidental drug overdoses as a leading cause of death in Franklin County, taking over 700 lives in recent single-year tracking periods, per Franklin County Public Health. In January 2025, the Franklin County Overdose Fatality Review Committee launched a Community Action Group bringing people with lived addiction experience into targeted, community-based prevention work across local neighborhoods, according to Franklin County government.
That tension between hopeful numbers and continued losses is part of why free, public-facing events like Soberfest carry weight beyond a single afternoon of music. Central Ohio's treatment infrastructure remains under financial strain even as demand persists; Hoodline previously reported that the ADAMH Board allocated $11.38 million in provider services funding for fiscal year 2025 to major local treatment provider Maryhaven, alongside a $1 million emergency interest-free loan approved by Columbus City Council from the city's Opioid Recovery Fund.
Planning a Visit
Soberfest Ohio is free to attend, though last year's event charged a $10 vehicle parking fee at Gate 4 to help cover operational costs, according to posts shared in local Facebook groups. With music running most of the day, a kids area in the afternoon, food trucks and dozens of recovery-focused vendors, organizers are pitching the fairgrounds gathering as proof that a full life and sobriety aren't mutually exclusive.
