With spring weather around the corner, Wareham residents can look forward to a usual shell-ebration.

For the ninth consecutive year, the Oyster Festival will return to Wareham, this time with a new organizer and a fresh location.

On May 24 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. 125 vendors will gather in Besse Park, accompanied by a 12 piece funk band, an oyster mascot named Salty and a variety of other interesting attractions. Admission will be free.

Vendors will offer a variety of food, including barbecue, strawberry-dipped treats, fried dough, burgers, hot dogs and of course, oysters. Arts and crafts and beer and wine vendors will also be selling their goods.

In previous years, the festival shut down Main Street for a day in May. This year, under the leadership of new promoter Lorna Brunelle and under the banner of Sip and Stroll, the event will take place in Besse Park and extend to the area surrounding Warren’s Harborview restaurant.

Along with the change in location comes a change in date with Brunelle opting to hold the event on a Saturday as opposed to the usual Sunday, to account for potential weather.

“If it rains Saturday, we can still come out on Sunday and frolic and eat, drink and be merry and not think about work on Monday,” she said.

Brunelle took charge of the event after the previous organizers decided to take a break from the festival, due to "uncertainties in the shellfish industry,” according to their website.

Brunelle, who is the daughter of Danny Warren, owner of Warren’s Harborview, founded Sip and Stroll, an event she puts on five times a year in the South Coast region.

She first hosted the event in Middleboro, bringing together hundreds of vendors and thousands of attendees and it has since spread to Kingston.

More details at the link below