A "Shrimp Festival" may sound like a crazy celebration in a quaint river town in Southern Illinois but it is one you DO NOT want to miss! While the Mississippi grass shrimp calls several rivers in southern Illinois its home, at only two inches long it's not going to fill your belly.

We're just days away from turning Golconda's Main Street into one of southern Illinois' biggest street festivals, attracting day-trippers from across Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Missouri. The 22nd Annual Golconda Shrimp Festival, named the ‘#1 Food Festival in the State of Illinois' by National Geographic Traveler Magazine, was started in 2001 to celebrate the harvest of locally grown freshwater shrimp. Each year crowds of more than 5,000 people come to taste dozens of different shrimp dishes, enjoy the live music, and explore the charm of our historic riverside town.

The festival kicks off at 10am with food trucks lining Main Street and vendors filling the historic Pope County Courthouse lawn with a variety of products, services, and giveaways. Festival goers will find succulent shrimp dishes prepared in a number of ways including shrimp skewers, shrimp tacos, shrimp boils, fried shrimp, shrimp gumbo, shrimp cocktails, and so much more. Other festival foods like Italian beef, Chicago Dogs, gourmet coffee and tea drinks, fresh fruit shish kabobs, ice cream, and lemon shakeups will also be available for those folks who aren't shrimp lovers.

The children's area will include inflatables, cotton candy, and snow cones.

The beer garden will open from 11am to 10pm for those festival goers 21-years old and up. Domestic and craft brews will be served.

A Cornhole Tournament hosted by the Rural Pope County Fire Protection District volunteer first responders kicks off in the beer garden at 6pm.

Please don't forget to visit our local shops and restaurants dotted along historic Main Street too!

You can always just sit back and relax with family and friends to enjoy one of the live bands that will be performing throughout the day.

Date:  September 16, 2023

Time: 10:00am to 10:00pm

Location: Historic Downtown Golconda

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