ShadFest 2025: Poster Auction & Festival
ShadFest 2025 will happen on April 25th, 26th, and 27th.
Some of this year’s posters are currently on display in shop windows around town. Keep an eye out as you walk the streets and you’ll get a true insider’s view before they are mounted for preview on local’s night.
Friday Night is Local’s Night
From 5-8pm on Friday, April 25th, North Union Street will be closed to vehicular traffic between Bridge and Church. Say hello to your neighbors as you explore the festival’s kickoff activities on what will hopefully be a lovely spring evening.
Soupçon Salon organized live music in the downtown shopper’s parking lot.
Here’s the performer lineup:
6pm: Bird Folk (Bronwyn, Justin, and Birdhouse friends)
7pm: Clover & Sundream
8pm: Brian Dale Allen Strouse (full band)
Attendees are encouraged to bring blankets, chairs, and snacks so you can get comfy while you enjoy the musical performances—weather permitting. If it rains, music will happen at Soupçon Gallery (inside Bucks on Bridge).
2025 ShadFest posters will be on display for locals to preview from 6–8pm.
ShadFest 2025
ShadFest runs 11am-5pm on Saturday and Sunday, April 26th and 27th.
Downtown Lambertville will be transformed into an outdoor walking mall with art, music, dancing, clothing, tents, tables, food, vendors, and a mini pony.
Poster Auction
All 2025 ShadFest posters will be on display in the Lambertville Presbyterian Church’s gymnasium on North Union Street throughout the festival.
The Silent Auction will be open for bidding on Saturday and Sunday, but it closes at 2 pm on Sunday. The Live Auction for art begins at 3 pm on Sunday.
Shad Fishing
A live fishing demonstration will take place at 1pm on Saturday and Sunday (weather permitting) on Lewis Island. To get there, walk north on Lambert Lane (cross street by the bridge). Go through the parking lot on the left and across the bridge to see Steve Meserve and crew stretch a large net across the river.
Good Music
Live bands play all weekend. Wear your dancing shoes and follow your ears.
Beer Garden
The Lambertville Station parking lot (next to the bridge) will be transformed into a beer garden. It’s a great spot to take a break, sit, and hear some tunes.
Bike Parking
If you cycle into town, park your bike at the Phillip L. Pittore Justice Center, AKA the ACME Screening Room. Festival events are just one block away.
Local’s Lane
Visit Local’s Lane, which is located on Church Street, just off of North Union Street and across from the big white church. There you’ll enjoy crafts, art, and music from Lambertvillians. Local’s Lane honors ShadFest’s origins (see below).
How to Get Around
Download a map of the festival from the Lambertville Chamber of Commerce.
ShadFest Origin Story
At the heart of ShadFest is the poster auction, which raises money for arts scholarships each year. The whole festival began back when Lambertville was a forgotten industrial town filled with empty storefronts, dilapidated buildings, and a few determined creative pioneers.
At the time, Jack Curtin and Jim Hamilton lead The Lambertville Area Chamber of Commerce. They loved this town, and they wanted to highlight the artistic community that New Hope and Lambertville had fostered since the early 1900s.
The idea for the theme of the festival stemmed from the Shad fish swimming up the river to spawn after having been previously driven away by industry. Thus the Shad became a symbol for life returning to Lambertville.
Curtin and Hamilton organized the first event with Ellen Hall, Harry Haenigson (cartoonist and Director of Bucks County Playhouse), and John Terrell (founder of Bucks County Playhouse, Lambertville Music Circus, and the Washington’s Crossing Christmas reenactment).
Since its inception in 1982, the ShadFest Poster Auction has given over three-quarters of a million dollars in scholarships to students studying fine art, the performing arts, or culinary arts.
Scholarship winners have gone on to become makeup artists, filmmakers, fashion designers, curators, TV producers, fine artists, ceramicists, musicians, and teachers.
- Learn more about the ShadFest Poster Auction at ShadFestPosters.org.
- Get the 2025 ShadFest schedule from the Chamber of Commerce.
- Discover Lambertville events that happen on ShadFest weekend.
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