| Woollybear Festival | |
|---|---|
| Genre | festivals |
| Location(s) | Vermilion, Ohio |
| Coordinates | 41°25′18″N 82°21′41″W / 41.421728°N 82.361327°W |
| Country | United States |
| Years active | 50–51 |
| Inaugurated | 1973 |
| Website | www |
The Woollybear Festival is held every Fall in downtown Vermilion, Ohio, on Lake Erie. The one-day, family event, which began in 1973, features a woolly bear costume contest in which children, even pets, are dressed up as various renditions of the woolly bear caterpillar.
The festival is held every year around October 1 on a Sunday on which the Cleveland Browns either have an away game or are not playing.[1] It is touted as the largest one-day festival in Ohio, with attendance over 100,000.[2][3]
One of the little-known facts about the Woollybear Festival is how its date is chosen each year. Goddard has worked for many seasons as the statistician for all home games of the Cleveland Browns. He waits until he sees the team's schedule each fall, then picks the Sunday in late September or early October that the Browns are playing out of town. That becomes Woollybear Sunday.