Durant’s 25th annual Magnolia Festival kicks off

DURANT, Okla. (KXII) -For 25 years, the Durant Area Chamber of Commerce has put on the Magnolia Festival with the hope of bringing the community together.

“Magnolias, kicking off the summer with them blooming just felt like a natural fit,” said Jeremy Spence, Durant Area Chamber of Commerce Manager.

And each year the festival has transformed, “this festival absolutely gets bigger and better every year,” said Scott Jarman, Owner of SKT Concessions.

So to go big this year, the chamber brought in larger than life robotic transformers, “’Extreme Costumes’, we’re based in Rhode Island. We build large mobile costume suits using stilts and our design philosophy to create the biggest and showiest and also most immersive robotic costumes out there, " said ‘Extreme Costumes’ Artists, Natalie Fuinha.

And there’s plenty of rides for the kiddos, “we have three times the amount of rides. If you drive and see the carnival layout, you can tell it’s a much bigger footprint than last year,” Spence said.

While magnolia festival kicks off Thursday, you have till Saturday to join in on the festivities.

There’s events and vendors for all ages and you have to stop and grab a bite of the festival food.

“From turkey legs to corn dogs to funnel cakes to ribbon fries, Indian tacos to fried pickles. Just all different types of foods,” Jarman said.

And inside the choctaw event center, you will find rows of vendors.

“I would say on a normal year, we will have anywhere between about 125 to maybe 150,000 people over the course of the three day festival. This year, we’re going to be well over 200,000 people,” Spence added.

If you head to the state capital of magnolias this weekend, be ready to be transformed.

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