2025 Carnival Details
The 2025 Carnival ended on August 17, 2025
2025 SCIUC Garage Sale
This was a great opportunity to sell or buy some great ukulele-related gear. We hope to do it again at the 2026 Carnival!
2025 Carnival Materials
The 2025 Carnival materials were emailed to everyone who registered online
(except for those folks who have opted out of our emails).
They will be available to download until August, 31, 2025.
Simply right click and Save As to download it.
Or click on it, which will open it in another tab. Then save the page.
Schedule, Directions, Other
SCIUC 2025 – Directions to 2025 Silver Creek International Ukulele Carnival
SCIUC 2025 – Ukulele Garage Sale – Ukester Brown
SCIUC 2025 – Schedule 2025-08-05
Workshops
SCIUC 2025 – Workshop – Chris Russell – Beginner Baritone Ukulele
SCIUC 2025 – Workshop – Chris Russell – Beginner Ukulele
SCIUC 2025 – Workshop – Chris Russell – Intermediate Ukulele
SCIUC 2025 – Workshop – Chris Russell and Charles Finch – Tablet Madness
SCIUC 2025 – Workshop – Devin Scott – Spice Up Your Strummin’
SCIUC 2025 – Workshop – Devin Scott & Ally McNatt – Bass Basics
SCIUC 2025 – Workshop – Devin Scott & Ally McNatt – Beyond Basics on Bass
SCIUC 2025 – Workshop – Tobin Sobaski – Chord Extensions
SCIUC 2025 – Workshop – Ukester Brown – UB’s Barre Chording 2
SCIUC 2025 – Workshop – Victoria Vox – Chord Melody – Ship Goes Down
SCIUC 2025 – Workshop – Victoria Vox – Get in the Groove
M.U.G. Music
SCIUC 2025 – M.U.G. – Burning Love – Petey Mack
SCIUC 2025 – M.U.G. – Call Me The Breeze – Devin Scott
SCIUC 2025 – M.U.G. – Catch Us If You Can – THUG
SCIUC 2025 – M.U.G. – The Wild Mountain Thyme – THUG
SCIUC 2025 – M.U.G. – You Are My Sunshine – Chris Russell
SCIUC 2025 – M.U.G. – You Got It – Victoria Vox
SCIUC 2025 – M.U.G. – Your New Boyfriend Is Ugly – Ukester Brown
Other Music
SCIUC 2025 – Facebook Live Stream 08-15-2025 – Petey Mack
SCIUC 2025 – Gospel Song Book – Ukester Brown
SCIUC 2025 – Saturday Strum Session – Petey Mack
Online Registration
Online Registration for the 2025 Carnival ended on 08/01/2025!
Registration for the 2026 Carnival will open in May 2026!
2025 Carnival Concerts
The 2025 Carnival featured concerts by some very talented people.
See the Ukulele Carnival Schedule page for concert times.
Thursday, August 14, 2025
- The evening concert featured THUG, Victoria Vox, Devin Scott and Ally McNatt, Ukester Brown, and Petey Mack.
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 wwas in concert.
- Devin Scott and Ally McNatt were in concert.
Saturday, August 16, 2024
- Victoria Vox and Jack Maher were 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 were your playing opportunities:
- Thursday
- Strum session in the afternoon
- Friday
- Strum session in the morning
- Devin Scott and Ally McNatt workshop in the morning
- Facebook Live Sing-a-long rehearsal in the morning and afternoon
- Victoria Vox workshop in the afternoon
- Intermediate ukulele lessons 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, led by Petey Mack
- A M.U.G. rehearsal in the morning
- Victoria Vox workshop in the afternoon
- 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 featured workshops by some very talented people. It was a great chance to increase your ukulele skills.
See the Ukulele Carnival Schedule page for workshop times.
- Devin Scott and Ally McNatt presented a ukulele workshop titled Spice Up Your Strumming, a Beginner Ukulele Bass workshop, and an Intermediate Ukulele Bass workshop.
- Victoria Vox is presented 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 presented a workshop on Chord Extensions for the intermediate level player.
- Ukester Brown is presented a workshop titled UB’s Barre Chording 2.
- Chris Russell is again presented four Beginner Ukulele classes, two Intermediate Ukulele classes, a new Beginner Baritone class, and co-taught a new workshop with Charles Finch on using an electronic tablet for your music titled Tablet Madness. Chris and Charles provided personal help for folks on using their tablets.
Carnival Clothing
This year Stein’s Outdoor Store (SOS) will be handled our Silver Creek International Ukulele Carnival clothing.
Stein created a new beautiful design for this year’s Carnival!
He is offered 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. He was also on site at the Carnival creating customized clothing for attendees. You can email Stein with any questions: stein@steinsoutdoorstore.com.
Food
Thursday 5:00 p.m.: United Church is hosted a lasagna dinner on Thursday evening this year at the fairgrounds! This took 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, Saturday, and Sunday mornings 7:00 – 9:30 a.m.: Community Partners sold muffins, fruit cups, coffee, tea, and bottled water. This was a fundraiser for their program, which helps older adults age successfully and live independently.
Friday: Room at the Table Catering and Bakery brought their mobile food truck to provide lunch and dinner for us.
Saturday: Na-cho Bizness was back again this year with their popular Mexican cuisine.
Saturday Night Catered Dinner
This is the 9th year we offered 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!
Menu: Roast turkey, baked ham, mashed potatoes with gravy, seasoned dressing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, creamy coleslaw, whole cranberry sauce, and dessert.
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 300 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 had two M.U.G. rehearsals scheduled for Saturday to clarify and fine tune things.
2025 Beginner/Intermediate Classes
Chris Russell again brilliantly taught a series of progressive beginner classes at the 2025 Carnival. Chris is a music educator with 29 years of teaching experience. This was a great opportunity to start learning the ukulele with four lessons over two days.
Chris again taught two intermediate classes at the Carnival. He got rave reviews from participants! This was a great opportunity to advance your ukulele playing and get answers to your questions.
Chris also taught a new Beginning Baritone ukulele class. This class introduced you to the differences between traditional GCEA tuned ukuleles and the DGBE tuned baritone ukulele.
2025 Open Mic
There were two open mic opportunities for you and your group to try your hand performing a song or two. There were open mic opportunities on Friday, August 15th at 8:15 p.m. and Saturday, August 16th at 8:15 p.m.
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.
