Festivalgoers pose for photos along Main Street in downtown Hendersonville during the 2025 NC Apple Festival, Aug. 29, 2025. (USA Today via Reuters)
The latest economic impact study on the North Carolina Apple Festival in Hendersonville found that it contributed nearly $12.5 million to the local economy.
HENDERSONVILLE – The North Carolina Apple Festival wrapped up on Labor Day with its grand finale event, the King Apple Parade.
“It’s a lot busier, a lot more crowds, a bigger parade” than in the past, five-year parade volunteer Sherry Coren told the Times-News the afternoon of September 1, just as the floats were getting ready to roll.
“The weather’s been nice and cool and beautiful,” and that likely drew people out to watch, she said.
The Apple Tart Queens danced on their high float in their matching red bob wigs.
Middle and high school marching bands, flag twirlers, dance companies, and cheerleaders, from across the county and beyond, made their way down the route.
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Clubs of Corvettes and Model-Ts roared and putt-putted along in low gear.
A group of people walked with llamas.
“One of them’s wearing a hat!” someone in the crowd exclaimed.
The Hendersonville High School Orchestra performs along Main Street in downtown Hendersonville during the 2025 NC Apple Festival, Aug. 29, 2025.
An antique Ford tractor pulling a trailer full of people on haybales had a moment of struggle with a tricky clutch before chugging triumphantly up the hill once again, to cheers.
Batman waved from a Bat Cave Emergency Services truck.
Isaac Goode, 14, from Edneyville, sat in a leaf-pattern deer blind that his dad Ben had set up on the side of the parade route for shade after finding he still had it in his truck.
He said he was looking forward to seeing his sister in the Apple Valley cheerleading squad, as well as the firetrucks.
And there were certainly a lot of firetrucks, blaring their horns, flashing their lights, some with civilians waving from the ladders.
This year’s festival was “probably the best one we’ve ever had,” 2025 Apple Grower of the Year Rex McCall, of Stepp’s Hillcrest Orchard, told the Times-News as he waited in a staging area to ride along the parade route in a sky-blue tailfin Chevrolet, with a driver wearing a giant foam apple hat.
He’s been participating in the Apple Festival for 16 years.
“It’s humbling to think people think that much of you and what you do,” he said of his nomination.
Festivalgoers shop along Main Street in downtown Hendersonville during the 2025 NC Apple Festival, Aug. 29, 2025.
Many of the festival’s other vendors agreed with McCall that the festival was remarkable, Summer Stipe, the festival’s fundraising and administrative coordinator, told the Times-News on September 1.
The latest economic impact study on the festival, from 2013, found that it contributed nearly $12.5 million to the local economy.
That study also found that around 250,000 people attended the festival and Stipe said that number was almost certainly significantly higher this year, based on what she’s heard from growers and vendors.
For context, Hendersonville has a population of just over 15,000.
“I’ve lived here for 10 years and this is my first time coming,” Michael Weatherford told the Times-News along the parade route, with his son Nolan, 8, and a clump of other boys his age.
The boys said that they were looking forward to seeing the cheerleaders.
Apples sit on display along Main Street in downtown Hendersonville during the 2025 NC Apple Festival, Aug. 29, 2025.
The parade is a great time, and as much as he doesn’t love the traffic that it creates, it also brings good business to town, Weatherford said.
“It’s got the tractors and the old cars, which is always nice, and the community coming together,” he said.
Labor Day weekend also saw “Workers over Billionaires” demonstrations nationwide, and Hendersonville was no different.
Around 100 protesters from the group PERSIST of Henderson County lined Church Street, parallel to the festival on Main Street, Aug. 31. They focused on support for the migrant laborers that work many of the farms that supply the festival’s apples.
“By supporting migrant workers, we are also supporting our farmers, their livelihood, their families and our local economy,” organizer Tom Shantz said in a Sept. 1 email.
George Fabe Russell is the Henderson County Reporter for the Hendersonville Times-News. Tips, questions, comments? Email him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Hendersonville festival ‘probably best one we’ve ever had.’ King Apple Parade draws crowd
Reporting by George Fabe Russell, Hendersonville Times-News / Hendersonville Times-News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
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