Carnival Details
2025 Online Registration
Online registration for the 2025 Carnival is now open!
2025 Carnival Concerts
The 2025 Carnival features concerts by some very talented people.
See the Ukulele Carnival Schedule page for concert times.
Thursday, August 14, 2025
- The evening concert will feature THUG, Victoria Vox, Devin Scott and Ally McNatt, Ukester Brown, and Petey Mack.
- Because of the possibility of rain last year, we are now hosting the Thursday evening concert in the main building at the Lake County Fairgrounds.
The Thursday Simple Supper dinner will now be served at the fairgrounds, too!
Friday, August 15, 2025
- One mini concert – 3 Spot (made up of Tobin Sobaski, Steve Smith, and Dale Moe)
- Steve Solkela and his “overpopulated” one man band will be in concert.
- Devin Scott and Ally McNatt will be in concert.
Saturday, August 17, 2024
- Victoria Vox will be in concert.
2025 Strum Sessions
In our strum sessions, we play from The Daily Ukulele (yellow book) and The Daily Ukulele Leap Year Edition (blue book), These are both really great books compiled and arranged by Liz and Jim Beloff. I would highly recommend that you purchase them. We often end up playing from Petey Mack’s Singalong book at the Campfire Strums. I would recommend downloading a copy from the link. We may do a strum session or two this year around a theme for some added fun. Stay tuned for more details.
We like to provide a lot of time for playing. Here are your playing opportunities:
- Friday
- Strum session in the morning
- Facebook Live Sing-a-long rehearsal in the morning and afternoon
- Devin Scott and Ally McNatt workshop in the morning
- Victoria Vox workshop in the afternoon
- Strum session in the afternoon
- Facebook Live Sing-a-long in the afternoon
- Open mic and campfire strum time in the evening
- Saturday
- A strum session in the morning
- A M.U.G. rehearsal in the morning
- Ukester Brown workshop in the morning
- A M.U.G. rehearsal in the afternoon
- Playing the M.U.G. songs in the afternoon concert
- Open mic and campfire strum time in the evening
- Sunday
- Gospel Sing-a-long in the morning
2025 Carnival Workshops
The 2025 Carnival features workshops by some very talented people. It is a great chance to increase your ukulele skills.
See the Ukulele Carnival Schedule page for workshop times.
- Devin Scott and Ally McNatt are presenting a ukulele workshop and possibly a ukulele bass workshop or two.
- Victoria Vox is presenting a workshop titled Get in the Groove and another workshop Chord Melody – Ship Goes Down (intermediate level).
- Tobin Sobaski, THUG’s amazing lead ukulele player, is presenting a workshop on Chord Extensions for the intermediate level player.
- Ukester Brown is presenting a workshop.
- Chris Russell is again presenting his intermediate checklist workshop, four beginner classes, and again this year: two intermediate classes. We are also working on a possible baritone workshop and a possible Q & A session on using tablets for your music.
Carnival Clothing
This year Stein’s Outdoor Store (SOS) will be handling our Silver Creek International Ukulele Carnival clothing.
Stein has created a new beautiful design for this year’s Carnival!
He is offering a 1/4 zip long sleeve shirt, regular t-shirts, and caps. See Stein’s website for more details and to purchase your Carnival clothing. His website should be ready to go soon. If you have any questions about this year’s Carnival clothing, please email Stein: stein@steinsoutdoorstore.com. He will handle all of your questions.
Food
Thursday 5:00 p.m.: United Church is hosting dinner on Thursday evening again this year, but this year they are bringing the food to the fairgrounds! This takes place right before the Thursday evening concert.
Menu: Lasagna with meat sauce, or gluten-free lasagna with meat sauce, or vegetarian lasagna (does include cheese), peas, salad and dressings, breadstick, choice of dessert (including gluten-free options), beverage: water, lemonade, or coffee. Price: $12
Friday 11:30 a.m.: Room at the Table Catering and Bakery will be bringing their mobile food truck to provide lunch for us.
Friday 5:00 p.m.: Room at the Table Catering and Bakery will be bringing their mobile food truck to provide dinner for us.
Saturday 7:15 a.m.: Community Partners is providing a coffee and muffins. This is a fund raiser for their program, which helps older adults age successfully and live independently.
Saturday 11:40 a.m.: Na-cho Bizness is back again this year with their popular Mexican cuisine.
Saturday Night Catered Dinner
This is the 9th year we are offering a catered buffet dinner at the Carnival. This year we brought back our catering service from Duluth: Sarah Mae’s Catering. They got high reviews last year. THUG has also eaten their delicious food at a couple of our past gigs that they had catered. Their food is fabulous!
Dinner starts at approximately 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, 08/16/2025 in the main building at the Fairgrounds.
Menu: Roast turkey, baked ham, mashed potatoes with gravy, seasoned dressing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, creamy coleslaw, whole cranberry sauce, and dessert.
Price: $20
Sunday 7:30 – 9:00 a.m.: Community Partners is again providing muffins and coffee. This is a fund raiser for their program, which helps older adults age successfully and live independently.
Lodging
There are several motels and campgrounds in the Two Harbors area. The best place to start is by going to the Two Harbors Chamber of Commerce website, which has a listing of local lodging.
If you like camping, I would encourage you to camp with us at the Carnival site at the Lake County Fairgrounds. See below for more information.
Carnival Camping at the Fairgrounds
One of the reasons we moved the event to the Lake County Fairgrounds was to increase the room for much more camping.
The Fairgrounds charges us $10 per week per camper hookup. Our suggested donation for camping is $10/night with electric hookup, and $5/night for non-electricity. The extra donated money helps fund the Carnival.
2025 Campfire Strum
We again are hosting a strum session around the campfire on Friday and Saturday evening after the open mic session. We start inside the main building for the open mic, and then move outside to the campfire (weather permitting).
There’s something about playing and singing with friends under the stars with a campfire crackling in the background that is magical.
M.U.G. (Massed Ukulele Group) Music
One of the benefits of attending the Carnival is the opportunity to play and sing with 200 or so other ukulele players. We do that in strum sessions but also with our Massed Ukulele Group music.
Each year we have different presenters select and teach M.U.G. music that we will all play during the Saturday afternoon concert. It really is something special to be a part of this group experience!
We have two M.U.G. rehearsals scheduled for Saturday to clarify and fine tune things.
2025 Beginner/Intermediate Classes
Chris Russell will again brilliantly teach a series of progressive beginner classes at the 2025 Carnival. Chris is a music educator with 29 years of teaching experience. This is a great opportunity to start learning the ukulele with four lessons over a two of days.
Chris will also teach again two intermediate classes this year at the Carnival. He got rave reviews from participants last year! This is a great opportunity to advance your ukulele playing and get answers to your questions.
2025 Open Mic
There are two open mic opportunities for you and your group to try your hand performing a song or two. There are open mic opportunities on Friday, August 15th at 8:00 p.m. and Saturday, August 16th at 8:00 p.m. You can sign up at the registration table to secure your spot.
Directions
The Carnival’s location:
Lake County Fairgrounds
1381 Fairgrounds Road
Two Harbors, MN 55616
This is still located inside the Silver Creek Township, so we didn’t have to change our name.
