It took a while on Saturday morning for the opening entrants in the Oktemberfest parade to reach the intersection of Main Street and Center Street, where the main stage was for the 2021 edition of Oktemberfest.

But once they made the long trek from the starting point at 9th Street to Center, there was a huge cheer among the crowd that had gathered to celebrate.

This was a long time coming for Marshalltown and for the board of Oktemberfest, one of the more well-known fall festivals in the state. The theme for the 2020 edition of the festival — “Fire, Ice and Iowa Nice!” in honor of the 125th anniversary of Lennox Industries, the Diamond sponsor for the event, being in Marshalltown — but the start of the COVID-19 pandemic changed those plans and forced the Oktemberfest board to cancel the event.

Once they were given the go-ahead for the 2021 event, the decision was made to keep the same theme and sponsor — this time in honor of 126 years of Lennox in Marshalltown.

Interest in the parade was strong this year, according to Oktemberfest Vice President and Parade Director Stephanie Anderson. She said the days leading up to the parade were stressful, as multiple entrants had to back out and others signed up late. All in all, Anderson said around 115 entrants were in the parade.

“Honestly, I think it went pretty well,” Anderson said. “Just trying to get everyone in order last-minute was stressful but it went really smoothly I think. I think people are excited — we had a big parade, it was a good parade.

“I was excited, we were kind of thinking it could go either way this year just because it’s kind of a weird year. Once they started rolling in, they didn’t stop.”

The parade, which took place after the annual 5K/10K run planned by board member Dana Keeling, lasted nearly two hours. Candy, ice cream scoops and hand sanitizer were among the number of items tossed to the kids and their families lining Main Street. Some of the participants included the Marshalltown High School marching band, as well as marching bands from Nashua-Plainfield, Roland-Story, East Marshall, Lynnville-Sully and Madrid.

After the parade, hundreds of people milled about in the carnival, which was a popular spot for young festival-goers all weekend long.

Plenty of food vendors were present along the street as well, with one popular spot being Bubba’s Burnt Ends Bar-B-Q. The burnt ends and turkey legs were very popular from Bubba’s. Funnel cakes were sold by Kiwanis, the Boy Scouts troop from Le Grand sold Dairy Queen blizzards on Sunday and Pork sandwiches on Saturday, Maria’s Tacos brought its food truck and Scott’s Amusements provided traditional festival and fair food.

The President of the Oktemberfest board, Duane Dixon, said he was pleased with how things went operationally for the event. He mentioned that there were a few small hiccups, but that things largely went to plan.

“Everything’s kind of all fallen into place,” Dixon said. “I couldn’t even put into numbers, it’s probably a couple hundred hours each for several of us. There’s quite a bit involved with it.

The crowds that have turned out so far have been great, great response from the community. It’s good that the weather cooperated this year.”

At 1 p.m., cars began to file in for the Car Hop, which took place at 5 p.m. on Saturday. Andre Lizarde of Lizarde Hydraulics was on hand to direct and help judge the competition, as the two blocks of Main Street blocked from drivers were filled with unique and eye-catching lowrider-style cars and trucks.

Some of these cars were local, but Lizarde said he was impressed with how much interest there was in the event this year after last year’s cancellation.

“It feels great, because I thought we were going to lose peoples’ interest but to be honest, it kind of just built it heavier,” Lizarde said. “We’ve got people from Alabama, Nebraska, Indiana and Illinois, it’s crazy.We’ve even got people coming up from Kansas City and Wichita, Kansas. Everybody is pretty much on a seven-to-14 hour drive here. We’re doing a pretty positive thing and everybody wants to be a part of it.”

The night ended with a performance from The Hype, a 1980s cover band. On Sunday, there was a motorcycle show similar to Friday’s car show, and featured appearances from F & J Racing owners Fred and Jackie Ingraham, as well as Blessing of the Bikes organizer Tom Reynolds.

This year’s success has given the organizers of Oktemberfest a boost of confidence knowing the public is still very much interested in the event.

“It just makes all the work worth it,” Dixon said.