After being cancelled last year due to COVID-19, Swiss Days will be back in full swing the first weekend of September.
On Friday and Saturday, September 3 and 4, crowds in the thousands are expected to come to Midway from throughout Utah and beyond. An annual tradition since the 1940s, Swiss Days will offer an outdoor craft fair, 10k race, parade, live entertainment and food booths with traditional dishes made on site.
“The enthusiasm is just mounting, and people are very, very excited that it will be happening,” Midway Mayor Celeste Johnston says.
According to state tourism numbers, the festival is the second largest in Utah after Pioneer Day, with 100,000 people visiting Midway every September for the event. The festival began as a harvest celebration, then turned into a celebration honoring the Swiss pioneers who settled in the Heber Valley.
To kick off the festivities, the market opens Friday morning at 8 a.m., and the first entertainers Cary & Ken take the stage 30 at 8:30. Performances continue until 8 p.m. when the market closes.
The Swiss Miss Royalty, a group of girls who put on a longtime community favorite traditional performance, go on at 3:00 Friday.
Saturday’s events begin at 7 a.m., when the 10k runners will take off and dishes are served at the Chuckwagon breakfast. Booths and performers go from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. again. Also on Saturday, the parade starts at 10 a.m.
“Many, many of the booths are home-crafted or mom-and-pop-type operations, so they’re creative, beautiful and unique, and I think that’s one of the biggest things that people look for, or the biggest reason they come,” Johnson says. “I would say the next biggest reason is the food.”
Food favorites include the Swiss taco, a navajo-style taco with shells made of scone dough. Vendors prepare these and other cultural meals on site, and volunteers from local churches serve.
For more on Swiss Days and a full schedule of events, visit Midway Swiss Days (gohebervalley.com).