{"id":281106,"date":"2026-09-07T23:18:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T23:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/281106\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T23:18:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T23:18:21","slug":"scrantons-la-festa-italiana-marks-50th-anniversary-with-record-crowds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/281106\/","title":{"rendered":"Scranton\u2019s La Festa Italiana marks 50th anniversary with record crowds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Thousands gathered in downtown Scranton this Labor Day weekend to celebrate a milestone for<a href=\"https:\/\/lafestaitaliana.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> La Festa Italiana, <\/a>drawing what organizers called the event\u2019s largest crowd yet.<\/p>\n<p>The four-day festival marked its 50th anniversary with more than 70 food vendors, live entertainment, and plenty of Italian tradition.<\/p>\n<p>Festival Vice President Joe Guido said that great weather and the spirit of the celebration helped draw crowds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis week has been incredible. It marks our 50th anniversary of the La Festa Italiana, started in 1976. We have an absolutely gorgeous weekend, weather-wise. We have had record crowds, Saturday and Sunday, and we\u2019re expecting today. We haven&#8217;t seen numbers like this since the festival has been going on,\u201d said Guido.<\/p>\n<p>A new addition this year was a La Festa 2026 sign, which Guido said quickly became a popular spot for photos and memories. He said it\u2019s also heartwarming to see familiar faces return to the festival year after year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat makes it special too, because we know we&#8217;re providing a nice service for them, a great festival that they want to come back to year after year and make it a tradition. And it&#8217;s fun. We have a new sign in the middle of North Washington Avenue that says La Festa 2026. That has become like the unofficial photo spot of La Festa. Thousands of people have taken pictures by that sign. I think that&#8217;s going to become an annual tradition every year as well,\u201d said Guido.<\/p>\n<p>For local vendor Dan Figura of Figura Concessions, serving sausage and peppers at La Festa has been a tradition for more than 25 years. He said the festival brings people together like few other events can.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is probably one of the most premier festivals that you will find on the East Coast, maybe in the country,\u201d said Figura.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe see the same people over and over and over. They just keep coming back. Everyday we hear, \u2018This is the first place we come to. This is why we come here.&#8217; We\u2019re not the only food here, there\u2019s so much good food at this festival, the entertainment, the committee here is spectacular. It\u2019s just the best festival you could go to,\u201d said Figura.<\/p>\n<p>La Festa Italiana wrapped up on Labor Day at 8 p.m., marking a record-breaking 50th anniversary celebration. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Thousands gathered in downtown Scranton this Labor Day weekend to celebrate a milestone&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-281106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}