The 39th annual Obetz Zucchinifest rolls into Fortress Obetz starting Friday, bringing four days of live music, amusement rides, food vendors and zucchini-themed contests to the Labor Day weekend tradition. Gates open at 5 p.m. Friday, and every live music concert across the four-day run is free to attend, with no tickets or paid passes required to get into the festival grounds or catch the main stage acts.
According to myfox28columbus.com, Friday's lineup features Willie Nelson Mandela and Clubber Lang, while Saturday brings North to Nashville, Easton Corbin and Kip Moore to the stage. Sunday closes out the weekend of headliners with Appalachian Outlaws, Little Texas and Lonestar. The festival kicks off Friday evening with the Zucchinifest Car and Motorcycle Show, which runs from 6 to 8 p.m. and charges a $20 vehicle registration fee, with all proceeds benefiting Honor Flight Columbus, Inc. to help fund veterans' trips to Washington, D.C., per Obetz Zucchinifest. The show is organized under the Car Show by Boots branding.
A Weekend Built Around Free Music and Family Fun
Beyond the concerts, the festival's daytime schedule includes a community parade Saturday at 11 a.m. and live professional wrestling matches presented by New Ohio Wrestling on Labor Day Monday from 1 to 4 p.m., with family horse activities rounding out the day before the festival closes, according to Obetz Zucchinifest. Festival organizers said additional entertainment and activities will continue throughout the long weekend.
Food vendors hoping to set up shop at Zucchinifest face their own hurdle: city rules require them to creatively feature zucchini in their menus, and simply tossing on zucchini chips is not enough to secure approval, according to City of Obetz vendor guidelines. Vendor selection is competitive, with booth fees ranging from $700 to $1,000 depending on frontage.
Zucchini Contests and a New Beer Collaboration
The festival also keeps its agricultural roots alive with a vegetable contest awarding prizes for the biggest, smallest, most unusual and best-dressed zucchini, plus a culinary competition judging zucchini desserts, relishes and breads, per Experience Columbus. This year's festival adds a new drink to the mix: the Golden Five: Blueberry Edition shandy, a zucchini-and-blueberry beer created in collaboration with Nocterra Brewing. The name nods to the five-petal zucchini blossom, and the shandy was inspired by Kraft's Kreations blueberry zucchini bread, a longtime favorite at Zucchinifest.
From Speedway to Sports Complex
The festival's home, Fortress Obetz, sits on the former site of the Columbus Motor Speedway, a NASCAR-sanctioned paved oval that ran races from 1946 until 2016, when the city purchased the land to build the current sports and event complex, according to Wikipedia. The speedway had been owned for decades by the Nuckles family before the municipal acquisition. Today the 50-acre facility features an 8,000-seat grandstand and hosts major regional athletic events, including the Ohio High School Athletic Association's state cross country championships, per the Ohio High School Athletic Association.
Obetz itself traces back to 1838, when it was established as a stagecoach junction called Obetz Junction. It incorporated as a village in 1928 and officially became a city after the 2020 U.S. Census recorded a population of 5,489 residents, according to the State Employment Relations Board. That growth hasn't slowed since: the local population surpassed 7,300 residents by 2024 through municipal annexations.
The city is also offering a perk for its own residents this year. Through its Hometown Advantage program, Obetz locals can pick up specialized festival wristbands at municipal offices during the week before Labor Day weekend to skip the general entry lines, the City of Obetz says. Fortress Obetz has increasingly become a go-to venue for major Central Ohio events, having also hosted Columbus Taco Fest's move downtown earlier this year.
