Richmond, Kentucky's annual Millstone Festival will be held Saturday, October 3rd from 11 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

downtown Richmond.

I'm Kelly McBride, the public information officer for the city of Richmond.

And joining me today is Erin Sharp and she's the director of Richmond's Parks and Recreations Department.

So Aaron, you've joined us to give us an overview of some of the highlights of the Millstone Festival 2026.

The Millstone Festival for 2026, we have a good lineup of our entertainment this year.

We've got the Jenkins twins at 1 o'clock, the Bourbon Revival at 3, and Rhythm Phoenix at 6 p.m.

Those sound like some good band names there.

Yes, we are located in the middle of Main Street facing the courthouse, so everybody can be a part of it and hear the music.

And it's right in the middle of all the vendors, so everybody gets to feel the excitement of the music.

I love that.

It's great having the stage in the center of everything now that the courthouse is renovated and right.

We got to have that last year, and so that's it's a good place to have it.

Yeah.

So we also have our regular food vendors that will be surrounding the courthouse.

We have all of our craft and community booths up and down Main Street.

We have about 160 vendors this year that people can come and see.

And some kids activities.

So we're really excited again to be able to bring in those and offer those to the community.

That's fun.

Now another service that's um offered to our attendees is a uh free shuttle service.

Um Kentucky River Foothills is uh providing their trolley for us again, and it will have a continuing loop.

Is that right from Madison Central High School?

Yes, Madison Central High School is where people can park and then they will be taken to Urban Street, which is right behind City Hall, dropped off, and then that will be a continuous loop till eight o'clock so that people have a ride back to Madison Central.

So it'll be a really good day, um, a really good service for them to um be able to have another option for parking.

Absolutely.

So you don't have to search for a parking spot.

You can go to Madison Madison Central High School, park in their parking lot and ride the trolley for free back to downtown Richmond.

One of the most exciting things that people really enjoy is the car cruises.

I was just gonna ask you about that.

Yes, it's down um at the end of Main Street at the bottom of the hill.

And you know, the people that participate in that, they really are involved, they're excited about coming with their old classic cars, and that typically goes till about four or five o'clock in the afternoon.

But you get to see all kinds of really fun old, exciting, you know, automobiles from the olden days.

That's right.

Not that we would remember any of those or you anyway.

Um, and some of them are very expensive.

Yes, we've had a car there that was over half a million dollars before.

That's crazy to me.

But they're there, and we're really excited that they are wanting to display that for our community.

And something else in the car cruise in is um the where they're bringing back for the second year the very popular twins contest, most identical twins contest.

Yes, so last year there was several.

There were kids or adults, there's men, there are women.

It was really fun to see all of the different twins that came and participated.

So there's a prize um for the most identical, and hopefully we'll have some more entries this year.

That's gonna be a lot of fun, and maybe two different age groups.

Yes.

And then that'll be down by the car show.

So people have to register down there and sign up prior to the actual event.

That will be great.

So again, Millstone 2026 is gonna be a load of fun.

It's a time for all of our community members and our guests and friends and family from far away uh near and far to come to downtown Richmond, enjoy recalling some of the history of Richmond with the Millstone Park, and then looking forward to the future.

So, and if you want to come out beforehand, um, we also have our historical um display at the Irvington House Museum, and it will open up for anybody to come in that Tuesday before during the last tasty Tuesdays, and then we'll continue on through October to get some more history of the mills and in Madison County.

So that's always a really good event as well.

And it's open uh Monday through Friday from 8 to 4 p.m.

That'll be great.

For more information about this year's festival, you can visit our Facebook page at Richmond KY Parks or you can visit our website at RichmondKY.gov slashparks.

So everybody come down to Millstone Festival October 3rd.

We'll see you there.