Ann Arbor FestiFools

The kickoff to the Ann Arbor festival season and by far one of the funnest gatherings in town. Festifools is split up into two events – the original and flagship «Festifools» and a younger twilight party called «FoolMoon.» Here’s the dish on each.
Firstly – Both typically take place on the second weekend of April. FoolMoon goes down on Friday night and Festifools on Sunday.
FoolMoon is a night time processional through several streets of Ann Arbor made up of locals who have made luminaries and are dressed up in lovely glowing garb (in the weeks leading up to FoolMoon you can attend luminary workshops to help make your own or buy kits at a few local shops like Downtown Home and Garden). The processionals all end downtown by Washington and Ashley for a nightime block party filled with cool sights, light projects and shows, beer, food, music and merriment. And all those eye popping and impressive luminaries. The party, on a nice weather night, goes until midnight. So it’s truly a party. In general FoolMoon is my favorite of the two and is one of my favorite things to do in town. Sadly this year it was raining and I’m just not built for elements like that so I didn’t make it down but next year I shall be sure to return.
Festifools is what they call «a gigantic public art spectacular, created by members of the community and U of M students.» Folks get together in the weeks leading up to the event and make huge papier-​mâché puppets (most of which need several people to help control) which they then take to Main Street and march in a parade (along with costumed revelers and marching bands) for folks to enjoy. The puppets typically veer into the silly, the surreal, and maybe a little creepy. This year I saw some Pac Man ghosts (silly), big headed replicas of notable locals (the surreal), and a big fat baby with a phone that said «send nudes» (the creepy). There was also a huge Vincent Van Gogh, little kids dressed up as robots, Chinese dragons, an octopus controlled by about 10 walkers, and so so much more. This event is short, it only runs about an hour (4 – 5 pm) but they pack in a lot into it. Lots of fun, great for kids, pet friendly (I walked my dog down to watch the processional), and most importantly– FREE! Great cheap fun for the whole family! Or just curious onlookers on the street!
Happy to have such a cool, creative community in town working on this. Hoping they continue this tradition for many many years into the future!

Every year we say we should go. Last year we made it downtown but then Kris got food poisoning at lunch and we spent the rest of the afternoon with him puking and sleeping.
This was our year. We got downtown around two and had lunch before scoping out good seats for the parade. The people near us were awesome and fun and shared huge tubes of bubbles with us which was even more awesome and fun.
The puppets were varied and ranged from political to local flavor to the obscura to everything in between. Very cool. The animal-​themed ones were my favorites.
I know the organizers get grief from the city about people staying out of the flower beds but it would also be nice for someone to police the kiddies who were just running around completely unsupervised.