In Our Opinion … A big round of applause for the festival

Chalk up a big win for Hamtramck.
Last weekend’s late summer blowout, known as the Hamtramck Labor Day Festival, was another huge success.
And credit for that success goes to the unpaid volunteers who spent the year planning, and then pulling off, another party of the year.
The festival, which has been happening for 46 years now – think about that! – has seen a lot of ups and downs. But despite resistance from some in the community, and from city councilmembers, it all went off without a hitch.
And Hamtramck shone.

The three-day festival provided a diverse offering of live music, great food and interesting vendors selling vintage clothing and crafts, as well as other unique items.
Best of all, it was all homegrown and folksy. If we had one complaint, and we say this every year, it’s that the City of Hamtramck doesn’t help fund the festival, and so, instead, festival volunteers have to rely on fundraising.
Tens of thousands of people visited the city for the festival, as they do every year, buoyed this time by almost ideal weather. That’s something the city should be financially supporting.
Unlike our suburban neighbor to the north, Hamtramck keeps it real, while Royal Oak’s Arts, Beats & Eats offers nothing more than overly commercialized blandness.
The festival has also inspired other folks to throw their own festivals in the city, to which we say: the more the merrier.
Posted Sept. 11, 2026