Fairport's Scarecrows and Steins Are Sharing the Same Saturday Again

In a recent year, somewhere between the second and third hour of Fairport's Oktoberfest, an announcer standing under the big tent at Fairport Junction called out the name of that year's People's Choice scarecrow winner. The scarecrow itself was sitting a few blocks away on Main Street, next to a hardware store or a jeweler or wherever its makers had planted it that week. But the announcement came from the beer tent stage, not from a folding table at Scarecrow Festival headquarters. That's not a scheduling accident. It's how Fairport runs its biggest fall weekend, and if you live here, it's worth understanding why.

This year the pattern repeats on a bigger scale. Fairport Oktoberfest runs September 24 through 26, 2026, marking its 17th year along the Erie Canal. The Scarecrow Festival's People's Choice voting lands on that same Saturday, September 26, from 10am to 2pm. Two separate civic organizations, two separate fundraising missions, one Saturday. If you've always treated these as back-to-back village traditions that happen to fall a week or two apart, that's not actually how the calendar works anymore, and understanding the overlap changes how you plan the day.

Two Organizations, One Saturday

The Scarecrow Festival belongs to the Fairport Perinton Merchants Association, a volunteer-run nonprofit formed in 1979 to promote local commerce. The FPMA also runs Canal Days in June and Come Home for the Holidays in December, and it's the same group that decorates the Kennelly Park gazebo and Fairport Junction for the season. Oktoberfest, on the other hand, belongs to the Fairport Perinton Partnership for a Better Community. Proceeds from Oktoberfest go back to that Partnership, plus the Masonic Lodge and other local civic groups, funding business development and community programming year-round.

These are two different nonprofits with two different missions, running two different events. And yet, in at least one recent year, festival organizers announced the Scarecrow People's Choice winner directly from the Oktoberfest stage rather than at a separate ceremony. That only happens if the people running both events are actively coordinating rather than just avoiding a double-booking. For a village the size of Fairport, that's a small but telling detail: the same handful of civic volunteers are stitching two organizations' calendars together because splitting the crowd across two Saturdays would cost both events attendance and both nonprofits money.

What Actually Happens on September 26

Here's the day laid out, based on the venues each organization has published for 2026:

Notice the geography. The Scarecrow Festival headquarters sits on Liftbridge Lane West. Oktoberfest runs on Liftbridge Lane East. That's not a coincidence either. The Merchants Association decorates both Liftbridge Lane West and Fairport Junction for the fall season, which means the same short stretch of the village does double duty as the anchor point for both festivals. You could walk from the scarecrow voting table to the beer tent gate in a few minutes without crossing Main Street traffic.

The farmers market closing at noon, meanwhile, lines up neatly with the start of Oktoberfest's beer service. If you're the type who does a slow Saturday morning loop through the market before the village fills up, you'll be walking out right as the festival crowd starts walking in.

Getting There Without the Headache

If you've lived in Fairport for any stretch of Septembers, you already know the Village Landing lot fills up fast on a normal farmers market Saturday, let alone one stacked with two festivals. A few things worth knowing before you go:

• Village Landing has an underground lot in addition to the surface lot, and Packett's Landing lot sits directly across South Main Street as a second option.
• On-street parking is available along Perrin Street and West Avenue, a short walk from both festival sites.
• An RTS bus stop sits right at the Village Landing lot entrance on South Main Street if you'd rather skip parking altogether.
• Scarecrows will be spread along Main Street and the Fairport On the Rise Trail, so budget extra walking time if you want to see the full display before voting closes at 2pm.

None of this is complicated, but on a weekend where two festivals and a farmers market are all drawing from the same few blocks, five minutes of planning saves you a lot of circling.

Where to Eat If You Want to Skip the Tent

Oktoberfest food is part of the draw for a lot of people, but if you'd rather have a sit-down dinner away from the crowd, Fairport's Main Street corridor gives you real options that have nothing to do with bratwurst.

Bonnie & Clyde opened in February 2026 inside the original Fairport National Bank building, a 1924 structure on South Main Street. Chef and co-owner Greg Johnson trained at the Culinary Institute of America and spent years cooking in New York City before opening The Cub Room in Rochester more than a decade ago. The seasonal American menu, the mezzanine, and a private chef's table set inside the old bank vault make it a different kind of evening than a festival tent, and it's close enough to walk to from either Liftbridge Lane.

If you want something more familiar, Compané Trattoria has been serving modern Italian American food in the village since chef and owner Brendon Clar took it over in 2015. It's not new, and that's the point. On a weekend when the village is running at full volume, a reliable neighborhood spot with a lively bar is its own kind of relief.

Why This Is Worth Knowing If You Live Here

The easy read on this weekend is "lots to do in Fairport this September." The more useful read is what the overlap tells you about how the village actually functions. Fairport doesn't have separate infrastructure for separate events. It has one small commercial core, a handful of volunteer-run nonprofits, and a shared set of streets that get repurposed depending on the week. When the Merchants Association and the Perinton Partnership choose to run their two biggest fundraisers on the same Saturday and hand each other the microphone, they're not creating a scheduling conflict. They're pooling the one resource a village this size actually has, which is foot traffic.

That matters if you're trying to plan your own fall calendar around it. If you assumed Scarecrow Festival and Oktoberfest were separate weekends you could split between errands and outings, you'll want to adjust. If you're hosting out-of-town guests this fall, September 26 is the single day that gives them the most Fairport for the least driving. And if you've ever wondered why the village always seems to feel busiest on that particular late-September Saturday rather than spread evenly across the month, now you know it's by design, not by accident.

The Fairport Farmers' Market runs through November 21 this year, so there's no urgency if this particular Saturday doesn't work for your schedule. But if you want to see the village at its most concentrated, coordinated best, this is the weekend the two organizations that run its calendar decided to show it off together.

Fairport's calendar rewards the kind of attention that comes from actually living here, and that's exactly the lens the Amy Petrone Team brings to every conversation about this village, whether you're weighing a move within Fairport or just trying to figure out where to park on a Saturday in September. If you'd like a local's read on any corner of Fairport or the surrounding suburbs, Work With Us.