Hay Creek Festival

Our annual heritage festival is the most diverse event in Berks County, Pennsylvania and features over 1,500 volunteers bringing together two centuries of history with authentic demonstrations of early American trades and crafts, mechanical technology exhibits, old time music, and a modern craft & antique market.

Visitors will experience what life was like 200 years ago in the quaint village of Joanna Furnace and see the hands-on skills of the 18th & 19th century townsfolk.

Our community includes food preserving, laundress, weaver, seamstress, soap maker, broom maker, potter, tinsmith, gunsmith and pewter maker. The village woodworkers will be busy demonstrating adzing, pipe drilling, coopering and cutting timbers on a one-of-a-kind pit saw.

Be a part of our longtime heritage event and interact with the festival interpreters and demonstrators. You are encouraged to ask questions and to try your hand at many of our early American crafts and/or trades. Candle making, paper making and marbleizing, kneading bread , pipe drilling, wood carving, writing a letter to the ironmaster and “canceling” it at the village post office, gathering herbs, early American games and so much more. See the event website for complete details about these activities and more:

• Meet the Joanna Villagers
• Civil War Encampment
• Town Square Stage Entertainment and Dancing
• Mechanical Technology Exhibits
• Creekside Crafts & Antiques

The Hay Creek Festival is known for its delicious homemade foods. We offer everything from Mabel’s kettle soups (ham & bean, chicken corn noodle, and beef vegetable) ice cream, sausage and turkey sandwiches, hamburgers & hot dogs, French fries, homemade funnel cakes, bread, various baked goods and drinks. Fresh pressed apple cider is made daily.

The festival is held rain or shine.