Kentucky Derby Festival

The tradition & historical record

The Kentucky Derby Festival is an annual festival held in Louisville, Kentucky, during the two weeks preceding the first Saturday in May, the day of the Kentucky Derby. The festival, Kentucky's largest single annual event, was first held from 1935 to 1937 and was revived in 1956. Major events include: the Derby Festival miniMarathon and Marathon; Thunder Over Louisville, the largest annual fireworks display in North America; the Great Steamboat Race, featuring the Belle of Louisville; and the Pegasus Parade. ¹

The Kentucky Derby Festival Association started the first weeklong festival in 1935, including a parade, a riverfront regatta, and an orchestral concert. The first director was Olympic gold medalist Arnold Jackson. In 1937, a Derby Festival king and queen were crowned, marking the start of this tradition. After the floods of 1937, the festival was discontinued and it was not reestablished until 1956. In 2020, the festival was cancelled due to COVID-19, the first such cancellation since 1938. In 1962, Tom "Cactus" Brooks received the first Kentucky Derby Festival Silver Horseshoe Award, "given to a person who had made a difference in the community and in youth development". ¹

The Royal Court is among the oldest traditions of the Kentucky Derby Festival tradition, dating back to the 1950s by The Fillies, Inc. The Royal Court consists of a group of five young women chosen to preside over events related to the Kentucky Derby. These women officially represent both the Derby Festival and the city of Louisville. In January, a court of Derby Princesses is selected from a pool of more than 1000 applicants. Thirty finalists are selected and the pool is then reduced to five young women who make up the court. Criteria for the selection of the court members includes knowledge of the Derby Festival, poise, intelligence, personality, academic excellence and campus/community involvement. The court attends nearly 70 events during the two-week period leading up to the Kentucky Derby. The queen is selected by a spin of the wheel at the Annual Fillies Derby Ball. The festival saw this method of queen selections as the most fair way to select from their court and the tradition continues today. Each member of the court is awarded a $2000 scholarship, an entire wardrobe for the festival, VIP access to all events and a chauffeur for the entire two weeks of the official Kentucky Derby Festival. ¹

The festival's first major event is Thunder Over Louisville. Thunder kicks off with a day-long air show and one of the largest fireworks displays in North America. ¹

During the festival, much of Waterfront Park is billed as "Fest-A-Ville". It hosts a number of events, including the Chow Wagon, rides, and concerts. ¹

Each year, an official Derby Festival poster is unveiled and prints are sold to help finance festival events. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Kentucky Derby Festival”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Kentucky Derby Festival is an annual festival held in Louisville, Kentucky during the two weeks preceding the first Saturday in May, the day of the Kentucky Derby, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 2 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²