Evansville’s West Side Nut Club Fall Festival tops USA Today’s list of best fall festivals
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The West Side Nut Club Fall Festival in Evansville was recently voted Best Fall Festival by USA Today readers, honoring an upcoming event that annually brings more than 200,000 people to West Franklin Street to enjoy food booths, carnival rides, amateur talent competitions, parades and other attractions.
The annual tradition dating back to 1921 is considered one of the largest street festivals in the country.
“I just love the atmosphere of all of these people coming together, whether it’s the Nut Clubbers or all of these different nonprofit groups in the area coming down there and the community coming out to support their favorite causes,” said Kendall Paul, executive director of the Vanderburgh Humane Society.
Most of the festival’s food booths are run by nonprofit organizations.
This year’s festival runs Oct. 1-7 with a few new features, including pre-sales for ride wristbands and a remastered Munchie Map, which pinpoints the location of each food booth. Festival chairman Joe Petitjean told Inside INdiana Business many organizations still need volunteers.
“There are booths that have issues that they can’t get people to sign up to work,” he said. “And then some of our groups are aging, and as they age out, they’ll give up their spot.”
What’s new this year
For the first time, people planning to spend a lot of time on the Nut Club’s Fall Festival rides can buy wristbands early at a discount online. A $25 purchase equals unlimited rides for one day of the event, except for Family Day, which is October 1. The presale lasts until midnight on October 1. Otherwise, wristbands can be purchased Oct. 2-7 at the festival for $30.
A half pot drawing ticket presale is also new for this year’s festival. When the pandemic forced the Nut Club to cancel the event in 2020, they kept the drawing alive with a drive-through at the corner of the Lloyd Expressway and St. Joseph Ave.
Since then, the club received many requests to bring back this option. The drive-through presale will be held at the same location Sept. 28-30 from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. Ticket prices vary depending on the volume purchased, ranging from 3 for $10 to 150 for $100.
Another inaugural feature is credit and debit cards being accepted for half pot tickets during the presale and the festival. The winner will be announced online on Oct. 8. Each year, the half pot money is split between the winner and the Nut Club, which gives most of the proceeds to charity. Last year, the record-high half pot drawing reached more than $1.6 million.
“Our half pot vendor tells us we’re the largest in-person half pot in the country,” said Petitjean. “We would love to see a $2 million pot, and then that means somebody’s going to win a million dollars before taxes, which is great. It’s life-changing money for somebody.”
In addition, patrons who attend the festival every year will notice the Munchie Map has a new look. The guide—released about a month before the event—shows each nonprofit’s location and groups the booths according to food category.
‘We work hard, we play hard and we get things done’
The Nut Club began more than 100 years ago with the first West Side Business Men meeting at the library on West Franklin Street. Since then, the volunteer organization, which currently has about 300 members with full-time jobs, has held a festival nearly every fall.
“We work hard, we play hard and we get things done,” Petitjean said.
The group receives continuous praise for organizing the event year after year. Karla Horrell, executive director of the Evansville Association for the Blind, said the setup is impressive.
“It’s just amazing to watch them because they’re not dealing with little objects; they’re dealing with trucks and booths and electrical wires. They just slide them in. It’s unreal. Then there’s an electrical truck following them to hook up all the electricity. It’s just amazing to realize what goes into all of this and how well-planned it has to be,” she said.
“It’s so much more than what you would go to some other communities and see,” Paul added. “When people come to the festival who’ve never been down there, they’re a little shocked. They’re a little overwhelmed about how big it is and how many people are there and all the effort that the Nut Club puts into making this event happen.”
Petitjean said it takes more than 30 committees to ensure the event runs smoothly. “Every year, when Sunday at noon comes around after the festival, other than some dead spots in the grass in the park from where the rides are set for the week, you can hardly tell there was ever a festival there,” he said.
“We get together shortly after the festival to talk about what worked, what didn’t work, any issues we had,” he added. “We know right away if there’s something we need to tweak or make changes.”
The Nut Club donated $377,000 from last year’s half pot drawing to local charities this year. “It’s life-changing money for nonprofits that we support with our share,” Petitjean said. “We have expenses to put on the festival. Everything outside of our expenses is given away. Our goal is to give away all we can.”
Though the half pot drawing occurs in the fall, the process of deciding which nonprofits will receive funds begins at the start of the following year. “We’ve got a history with a lot of organizations where we’ve donated over the years and a lot of those come back every year and we support them,” Petitjean said. “The fact that we bring in more money makes it easier to support more people, more groups.”
Beyond the half pot drawing, the festival is a significant fundraiser for the nonprofits that line West Franklin Street. This year, nearly 130 booths will serve food and drinks.
“It’s long days for these groups, but those groups depend on that money to fund a lot of their programs, whether it’s a church program or school programs or scouts or a variety of things,” said Petitjean.
Food booth volunteers take turns working various shifts throughout the week. “There are like 120 different four-hour shifts that have to be filled. Our particular booth takes at least six people to run it inside,” Paul said. “It’s always hard to fill that many shifts, but it has definitely gotten harder.”
Long-time participants
The Vanderburgh Humane Society started participating in the Fall Festival in 1992. The booth’s menu includes fried green tomatoes and lemon shakeups. For this group, the event is much more than a fundraiser. “It’s not just what we make on West Franklin Street that week. It’s how we are now in that person’s mind for future fundraising and adoptions, and they’ll remember us and feel tied to us as an organization,” she said.
The humane society relies on volunteers in the booth during festival week so the organization’s standard operations can remain open. “There are still 700 animals in our care. We still have to be open for adoptions. Our spay and neuter clinic has to do surgeries. So we have to find unique people to come in and help do it,” Paul said.
Special Olympics Indiana Vanderburgh County, which has been a part of the festival for about 20 years, sells items such as fried pickle chips and pickle slushies during the first week of October. County coordinator TerriSue Morris told Inside INdiana Business that preparation for the event is intense.
“It takes a village to get ready for the Fall Festival. We wouldn’t be able to do it without our volunteers,” she said.
The money raised on West Franklin Street helps pay for Special Olympics athletes to compete in various sports.
“We rely on this money to help get them uniforms, get them to the state games, whatever need may arise for the athlete,” volunteer Leighann Drake told Inside INdiana Business. “This money helps pay their registration costs for state games and any fees that we have to pay for their practice fields or what have you because we do not charge our athletes.”
Changing food booths
In past years, the Evansville Association for the Blind sold pulled pork items at its booth. However, executive director Karla Horrell told Inside INdiana Business the group won’t serve festival-goers at this year’s event because of a lack of volunteers.
The association, which joined the festival in 2006, viewed the gathering as a fundraiser and a public relations opportunity. “We’re the only agency that serves the blind and visually impaired, but we’re a block off of any main thoroughfare,” said Horrell. “Unless you’re needing our services, you don’t know who we are. It was a way to get our name out there and be more in the public eye.”
Horrell said the nonprofit opted out of the festival in 2021 and returned to West Franklin Street in 2022, but there wasn’t enough support to continue this year.
“Last year, a couple of board members came down and helped me on Saturday morning. We just sold what we had left. But to be closed on the golden day, which is Saturday, that just kind of iced it. We stood there that day thinking if we can’t be open on Saturday, it just kills the rest of the week,” she said.
Young & Established, a mentoring organization, almost missed the chance to participate in the festival for a second year. Executive director Courtney Johnson told Inside INdiana Business he asked for help on social media when the group lost access to the food booth it used last year.
“We had over 200 shares on Facebook and I had about 47, 48 messages in my inbox of people just wanting to help us and make sure we had a booth for the Fall Festival, which speaks volumes about our community,” he said. “They support us and we love them, and that means a lot to have that type of response.”
Johnson said Marcos Nicolas of Henderson-based Tacoholics is loaning Y&E a food booth, allowing the organization to sell street corn and crab rangoon nachos. While the nonprofit raised some money last year, the group feels better prepared this year to make the most out of the festival.
“I’ve never seen an event so well planned and so well organized,” Johnson said. “As far as the cleanup, as far as the help, if you needed trash bags, if you needed assistance with your electrical work, there were so many people willing and ready to help. I truly was impressed by how they carried that whole event.”
What to know before you go and how to get involved
The Nut Club’s Fall Festival website has more information on the event schedule, ride wristbands, half pot tickets, Munchie Map and more. Social media posts on the Nut Club’s Facebook page also contain details about groups needing volunteers and nonprofits providing parking in the area for a fee. Organizations that want to submit a funding request to be considered for next year’s festival donations may fill out a form on the Nut Club’s website.