The annual Maine Lobster Festival returns to Rockland on Wednesday for a five-day feast and celebration of Maine’s beloved crustacean.
The 77th festival will be held from July 31 through Aug. 4 at Harbor Park and will feature local lobster dinners, entertainers, cooking contests, cannon lessons, ship tours, a pageant, and other activities for all ages, along with work by Maine craftspeople and artists.
Admission is free.
On Wednesday evening the 2024 Maine Lobster Festival Delegate will be chosen. Originally, Miss Maine Seafoods, then the Maine Sea Goddess, the pageant has been opened up to all participants aged 16-22, regardless of gender.
The Big Parade, the centerpiece of the festival, kicks off at 10 a.m. Saturday with Grand Marshal Lewis Metcalf, a firefighter and police officer for the city of Rockland for 36 years.
Sunday will feature a lobster eating competition and the International Great Crate Race, in which contestants try to scuttle across the water on a string of 50 floating lobster storage crates. (Most don’t make it.)
Festival visitors will be able to tour the U.S.S Delbert D. Black, a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.
Live music will be offered on multiple stages throughout the festival.
View a full schedule of events here.
Concord Coach Lines has buses to Rockland from most points in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and beyond. The Rockland bus stop is at the Maine State Ferry Terminal, a half-mile north of Harbor Park.
For those driving, organizers warn that parking is limited. A free festival shuttle bus runs from South Elementary School, 30 Broadway, and Oceanside High School at 400 Broadway.