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Oktemberfest to be held at the Central Iowa Fairgrounds

T-R FILE PHOTO The annual downtown Oktemberfest community celebration will now take place at the Central Iowa Fairgrounds, Sept. 27-29 due to the road closures and construction work in the downtown area of Marshalltown. Updates will be posted on social media.

The annual Oktemberfest community celebration will take place at the Central Iowa Fairgrounds this year, according to announcement from event organizers.

With road closures and construction impacting mobility in downtown Marshalltown, organizers decided to move the Sept. 27-29 event to the fairgrounds instead of the downtown area where it has historically been held.

“We have a variety of events we usually host, and the fairgrounds is the best area; they have the space and the parking,” Chair of Entertainment Garrett Goodman said.

Not all of the festival’s events have been scheduled yet. Goodman said there is bound to be some modifications in programming due to the change in location, but some constants will remain, such as the Thursday evening crowning of the Little Miss and Mr. Oktemberfest and the Saturday parade. Live entertainment, carnival and children’s activities, food and more will be returning.

“We’re trying to keep the same layout,” he said.

In an official statement released Monday afternoon on its Facebook page, the Oktemberfest committee announced the change of venue: “We will be packing it up from the downtown area and moving to the Central Iowa Fairgrounds. They have graciously come on board to sponsor this year’s Oktemberfest and we couldn’t be more appreciative to have this opportunity to provide our community something to look forward to in this hard time. We will be working out the logistics of the parade and other events over the next week and be providing more updates as we have them. Usually, the festival runs Thursday through Sunday, but this year we will be cutting Sunday due to logistics of the grounds. We will update more on what this means in coming weeks as far as events/layout of the festival.”

In addition, the committee is looking into ways the event can provide relief to the community — in the form of a silent auction and other ways to raise funds. If anyone has ideas, please reach out on the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/Oktemberfest

The theme of this year’s Oktemberfest is “Marshalltown Strong.”

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Contact Sara Jordan-Heintz at 641-753-6611 or sjordan@timesrepublican.com

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