After two years being absent from our community, what a rush to have the Morgan Hill Mushroom Festival back. The 2024 Festival is now behind us and the board of directors would like to thank the community for their involvement, participation, volunteering, attending and enjoying this two-day event.
By most standards, the 2024 Mushroom Festival was a huge success. Saturday and Sunday’s lineup of entertainment was first class. Saturday evening ended with Hotel California, the Eagles’ tribute band from Ontario, Canada.
There were 160 food and craft vendors, nine bands on the amphitheater stage, 10 acoustic artists, 400 volunteers and nearly 12,000 festival goers.
Since 1980, the Mushroom Festival has supported nonprofit organizations donating approximately $1 million to local school groups, Rotary, Kiwanis and animal rescue groups, just to name a few. In 1984, the Mushroom Festival began awarding scholarships to high school seniors within the Morgan Hill Unified School District.
The festival has awarded nearly $2 million in scholarships in the last 40 years. The festival board feels strongly about continuing the work of supporting local nonprofit groups and awarding scholarships.
It was a difficult decision for the festival board to implement the entry fee of $20 per person, but due to the unfortunate circumstances that have occurred at festivals, parades, concerts and other community events around the country, insurance and security costs have become a factor.
In order to maintain the goal of supporting local nonprofit groups and high school scholarships, the board made the difficult decision to charge for entry.
As late as 2000, when the festival was held at Morgan Hill Community Park, the fee for entry was $10 per adult and $5 for children. At the 2024 Festival, the entry fee was $20 per adult and children 15 years and younger were free of charge.
To increase security, the Mushroom Festival was moved to the Community & Cultural Center where the perimeter was fenced off and attendees entered through metal detectors. These additional security enhancements are things the festival board plans to keep in place going forward.
The board’s desire is to keep the festival going, bring residents together, support the community and keep all involved safe while attending the event.
We are listening to your suggestions and plan on bringing back the Kids Play Area, more mushroom inspired dishes, top notch entertainment and local food and arts and craft vendors.
See you Memorial Day Weekend 2025!
Dan Keith
President, Morgan Hill Mushroom Festival Board of Directors
