For Mikaela Davis, the 2026 Rochester Lilac Festival is a homecoming. Though the harp-playing, twangy, jam-adjacent singer-songwriter is now based in Catskill, New York, she still considers Rochester home enough to make her May 13 headlining set in Highland Park the release party for her new album, “Graceland Way.” Fellow local cornerstone group Giant Panda […]
Lilac Festival
Posted inMusic
Gladys Knight and Mikaela Davis among summer festival performer announcements
Despite a fresh snowfall, festival season is just a few months away. This week, two of the city’s cornerstone summer celebrations have revealed some 2026 headliners. The Rochester Lilac Festival will fill Highland Park with homegrown and touring acts beginning May 8 and running through May 17. Each night has free live music, with local acts […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Lilac Festival 2005
The Lilac Fest opens Friday, May 13, and runs through Sunday, May 22. It is 10 days of heady fun not only celebrating our city’s love affair with a certain purple bloom, but also heralding the opening of a long and full summer festival season.
Posted inSpecial Sections
Rochester’s 2004 Lilac Festival
It’s bloom time Our 10-day homage to the heady lilac has returned: This year’s Lilac Festival will run from Friday, May 14, through Sunday, May 23. The festival doesn’t only give us more incentive to enjoy the well-designed acres of Highland Park, or herald the opening of the long and busy summer festival season. […]
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The 2003 LilacFestival
Once again, the blooming has begun among the 22 acres of lilac bushes in Highland Park. Enter the Lilac Festival, Rochester’s oldest and largest festival, held this year from Friday, May 9, through Sunday, May 18, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. A half-million people will descend on the park, and there’ll be enough […]
