Hayrides, corn mazes, food trucks - and special guests - celebrate autumn in free event

Children’s laughter, delicious food, pumpkin patches, beer gardens, craft shows and family-friendly fun will abound across Chino Valley when Yavapai College’s Harvest Festival returns, Saturday, Oct. 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the YC Chino Valley Center, 2275 Old Home Manor Road. Admission is free.

You can keep your pumpkin spice – this is the true harbinger of Fall. “We have blocked out two weeks to prepare just for this,” Chino Valley Campus Dean and longtime festival showrunner Marnee Zazueta explained. “We’re out there, moving straw bales and hanging signs.” Runoff from recent storms required some landscaping, but Zazueta and her team are undaunted. “We’re making it happen. It’s going to be wonderful.”

Sponsored in partnership with the Chino Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Harvest Festival turns the College’s Chino Campus into a playground to celebrate autumn in all its cool-weather glory. Families bump around happily on the hayrides; kids (many freshly face-painted) giggle as they burrow through the corn maze and pumpkin patch; food trucks form an open-air food court to offer seasonal dishes; craft shows and College program demos await the curious; and the Beer Garden blooms with local brews, live music from Andrew Deering, and a family-family vibe.

If that’s not enough, the Harvest Festival has added a headliner: “We’re very excited to host the Prescott Regulators and their Shady Ladies this year.” Zazueta said. The renowned local Wild West reenactors will appear in their authentic gear and – because it is the Wild West – four staged shoot-outs will probably break out near the vendor booths. “We’re also thrilled to have the Southwest Wine Center down here with us, with wine for sale in the Beer Garden.”

With all its bounce houses, plant sales, drone races and bucket-truck rides, the Harvest Festival gives local parents and their kids a chance to shrug off summer, get out of the house and ‘get their autumn on.’  “It’s a great thing to see, every year,” Zazueta said. “We have a paint-your-pumpkin feature for kids. And the face-painting is for everyone – kids and adults. We don’t judge here.”

Yavapai College’s Harvest Festival runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 10, at the YC Chino Valley Agribusiness Center, 2275 Old Home Manor Drive, in Chino Valley. Admission is free. For more details, please visit: www.yc.edu/harvestfest.