The Pardeeville Watermelon Festival is an annual fall festival held the first Saturday after Labor Day in September, hosted in beautiful Chandler Park. It is held in Pardeeville, WI, USA, home of the U.S. Watermelon Speed-Eating and Seed-Spitting Championships, Inc. This year’s event will mark the 51st festival. For more information, please use the links above. This website will be changing more and more as we get closer to our event, so check back soon.
For more immediate information, please contact us.
CHAMPIONSHIP EVENTS
SEED SPITTING
MELON SPEED-EATING
WATERMELON CARVING
LARGEST WATERMELON
GAMES
NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK
WHEEL OF WATERMELON
BOUNCE-HOUSE
These Watermelon Games were begun one evening after a meeting of the Pardeeville Businessmen’s Association. They were having an after-meeting “social hour” at Bob Merwin’s Long Branch Saloon. Present were R. H. “Hoot” Thompson, Ray Bankers, Bob Merwin, Bob Williams, Merwin Smith, Herb Kampen, Ken Gavinski and a few others.Talk began with a general discussion of having an event to put Pardeeville “on the map”. This was to be a full-filled day, cheap and easy for the sponsors and relatively free of cost for those who attended.They talked, and drank, and laughed, and the outcome of the evening was five weeks later when the first Watermelon Festival was held. The first Spitting event was held on the old cement platform next to Frog Pong in Chandler Park. The first Eating Contest was held on the tennis courts.
A staple of our free festival, is the open air market. Our market showcases art and craft vendors from all over the area, plus a flea market and commercial vendors such Avon, Scentsy, and Tupperware.The fair opens at 10:00am until about 3:00pm. The last few years, we’ve had between 20 and 40 vendors spread out around the event grounds.
Championship Emeritus Chairmen:
Mr. Roland Rohde – Largest Watermelon
Mr. Phil Hodgson, Presiding Judge
Mr. Steve Thompson – Seed-Spitting
Mr. Tom Iverson, Presiding Speed-Eating Judge
Mr. Bob Williams (In Memoriam) – Speed-Eating
Mr. Kyle Williams, Presiding Speed-Eating Judge
Chairs:
Midway Games Chair – Todd Hepler
Concession Stand Chair – Dick & Karen Depies
Arts & Craft Vendor Chair – Open position
Promotions Chair – Mark D Taylor
Hay Dive Chair – Open position
Coloring Contest Chair – Open position
Mailing Address:
Pardeeville Watermelon Festival
P. O. Box 163, Pardeeville, WI 53954
Email Addresses:
For more information, email us at
info@pardeevillewatermelonfestival.com
To help sponsor this free event:
sponsors@pardeevillewatermelonfestival.com
To be a vendor, please email:
vendors@pardeevillewatermelonfestival.com
To help volunteer this year:
volunteers@pardeevillewatermelonfestival.com