Big Rock will soon be humming with the sound of tractors, carnival rides and more as the 131st annual Plowing Match and Festival returns to the village beginning Friday, Sept. 19, through Sunday, Sept. 21.
Organizers of the event said the village continues to celebrate its longstanding agrarian roots while slowly adding new attractions to the fest to keep it current and young people interested.
The event will again feature the signature plowing competition along with the popular carnival, craft and vendor shows, a watermelon-eating contest, a pedal tractor pull and plenty of live music and food, according to organizers.
According to the Big Rock Plowing Match Association’s website, there will also be mud volleyball, a bicycle parade on Friday, Prairie State Railroad Club train rides, a petting zoo, bags tournament, an old-time baseball game and more.
Denise Farrugia, who serves as the secretary and handles marketing and communications for the Big Rock Plowing Match Association, said the event has endured “because of its uniqueness.”
“We celebrate a plowing competition and it’s just very unique. It’s a plowing match and a festival and we have wrapped other activities that are agriculturally-based around the plowing competition,” Farrugia said.
“The carnival and the wristbands and the unlimited rides for the kids is a draw as well as the bike parade,” she added. “But yet there is also the joy and the fun of doing games and races that kids would have played 100 years ago. We really have a blend of activities.”
Food from local 5B’s Catering service will include pork chop and chicken dinners on Saturday and turkey with ham dinners on Sunday. French fries will be available for purchase for the first time.
Farrugia said maintaining the agricultural flavor of the event “is part of the mission of our group.”
“That’s supposed to be what we are doing, so that’s the challenge that we have to meet and if that means bringing in mud volleyball to get those 20- and 30-year-olds interested and invested in the overall concept of the plowing match, then that’s what we’re going to do,” she said. “We are trying to bring in that younger generation and get them invested.”
A crowd of anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 is expected to attend the festival this year, a number that Farrugia said “is trending up following the pandemic.
This year’s fest will include the dedication of the Davis Field sign which Farrugia called “a gateway to where the plowing is held.” The dedication will be at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday before the plowing begins.
“It was 64 years ago, in 1961, when the field was first used for the plowing competition. This gateway sign commemorates the gift of the Davis family and the partnership between the Historical Society and the Plowing Match,” she said. “This has been a year-long project from idea to dedication with a tremendous amount of effort and in-kind generosity that made it all possible.”
For more information on the festival, go to https://bigrockplowingmatch.org/festival-details%2Fschedule
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.