Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, and all creatures great and small, allow me to introduce you to the first annual Merrymeeting Tree Fest!

This November for two weekends, the Bath-Brunswick-Topsham Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Brunswick Landing Y are teaming up to host the Merrymeeting Tree Fest at the Y. The festival will be the weekends before and after Thanksgiving and will feature up to 55 tree spaces and 12–20 wreaths to be won, children’s crafts, entertainment, and much more.

To solve any confusion, let me address that the Midcoast Tree Festival that the chamber was a major partner on, and used to happen on the same weekends, disbanded this winter following our seventh successful festival last November. The former location is not available anymore due to a school expansion, and with the partnership disbanding, the chamber is bringing a tree festival to a new location, with the Brunswick Landing Y as the new partner. We didn’t want to confuse anybody into thinking it was the same festival with the same beneficiaries for the funds raised, and thus with the location change and the new partnership, the tree festival has a new name too, which is the Merrymeeting Tree Fest.

Many of the traditional aspects of popular tree festivals will be incorporated into the Merrymeeting Tree Fest — and, excitingly, we have some new ideas that we will be rolling out in the coming weeks. As for the traditional things you can expect to see this year, we will have a children’s craft area for making holiday crafts, lots of varied entertainment ranging from singers to more interactive entertainment, a visit from Santa and much more.

Side note: For those who have no idea what a tree festival is, let me take two paragraphs to explain it (tree festival fanatics, feel free to skip ahead). There are two ways a group can run a tree festival. The first way is to have businesses pay to present meticulously decorated and ornate trees that are on display for ticket holders to enter the room, be awed by the creative splendor of the displays, and potentially vote on their favorite decorated tree (the businesses then take the tree down at the end of the festival knowing that they helped spread holiday cheer). This is traditionally what tree festivals had been until the last 10–15 years or so. The second way to do a tree festival is to make it a raffle for the tree spaces, and ticketholders buy raffle tickets and put them in the buckets of the trees they would like to win. This model came to prominence for those in our area, with the FEZtival of Trees in Lewiston-Auburn put on by the Shriners for decades. This raffle model has now expanded to two dozen or more raffle festivals throughout Maine, and the Merrymeeting Tree Fest is this type of festival (some have punningly called the model a “win-tree wonderland”).

The Merrymeeting Tree Fest will have a maximum of 55 tree spaces for businesses, organizations or groups of citizens to register to claim — claiming a tree space costs nothing. However, there must be a minimum of $500 of value to the customer in your tree space (including the tree and decorations) for attendees to win. You can put nearly anything in the space (no alcohol, weapons, etc.). Many tree sponsors use the space to highlight their business, spotlight groups they like in the area by presenting their products or use it as a teambuilder and create a tree totally unrelated to their business (like a Lego tree, board game tree, etc.). The trees are then raffled off over two weekends, using 50-cent raffle tickets. Admission is $2 at the door, kids 12 and under are free. There are also wreaths to be won, entertainment at least twice per day, children’s crafts and more. At the end of it all, thousands of people come through the festival to see which businesses and organizations set up trees and wreaths, funds get raised for the organizing partners, and 50-plus families win a tree and $500 worth of gifts a month before the holidays. It’s a win-win-win.

Here’s what you need to know now:

Registration for tree spaces, wreath spaces and sponsorship begins Sept. 1. The hub of information for this year will be on the chamber website at midcoastmaine.com. At the very top of the chamber homepage is a direct link to the Merrymeeting Tree Fest page. The downloadable flyer is on the page, as well as wreath sponsor guidelines and the tree sponsor guidelines.

Even though registration does not begin until Sept. 1, we will have the registration forms available between now and then for those who want to look at them prior to submitting them.

Beginning the week of Sept. 1, we will begin contacting tree, wreath and event sponsors with confirmation that they have been accepted for the 2026 Merrymeeting Tree Fest.

There is so much more we will be telling you in the weeks to come. Stay tuned for updates on:

• Volunteering for the Merrymeeting Tree Fest.
• Entertainment opportunities.
• Special event days of the festival.
• Special trees at the festival.

Lastly, the dates and times you need to mark in your calendar for the Merrymeeting Tree Fest are as follows:

• Setup dates: Nov. 18 and 19 (until 3 p.m.).
• Merrymeeting Tree Fest Preview Night and Chamber After Hours: 5–7 p.m. Nov. 19.
• Merrymeeting Tree Fest hours (open to the public): 4–8 p.m. Nov. 20, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nov. 21 and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nov. 22; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nov. 27, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Nov. 28 and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 29. Winners will be drawn at 5 p.m. Nov. 29.

Find more information on the chamber website and in upcoming columns!

Cory King is executive director of the Bath-Brunswick-Topsham Regional Chamber of Commerce.