Carroll County Illinois PercyFest Festival
PercyFest is a September day of basketball and food trucks in Mount Carroll, the county seat of Carroll County, Illinois, and it is known mainly through a very short paper trail. The event’s own site carries the page for the twenty twenty-six edition, and two regional destination blog layers describe the edition held on 13 September 2025, but beyond those pieces the published record runs out quickly. No organising body is named anywhere, no founding year or annual billing is stated, and no attendance figure has ever been published. This article stays inside that narrow record and leaves the gaps standing exactly where the sources leave them.
About PercyFest
The published name is simply PercyFest, sometimes set in full capitals as PERCYFEST on the event’s own page. The word “Festival” in the sheet title does not belong to the published event name; in the layers read, that word appears only inside the component billing “Food Truck Festival,” which the twenty twenty-six page pairs with the tournament itself. That page bills the event as a 3×3 Basketball Tournament & Food Truck Festival, a pairing that captures the shape of the day: competitive three-on-three basketball at Percy Park, and a row of food, dessert and drink trucks feeding the people who come to play and watch.
Mount Carroll hosts the event, and Mount Carroll is the Carroll County seat, a point checked against the record rather than assumed. The venue named on the organiser’s page is Percy Park. Parking directions printed on that page send drivers toward the old school behind a filling station on South Main Street and Jackson Street, by the old Shimer College — landmarks only, since the page never prints a numbered address for the park.
Two editions anchor everything that can be said. The earlier one, on 13 September 2025, is described by a destination day-trip layer dated 8 September 2025 and by a destination blog layer dated 4 September 2025, which pictures a 3-on-3 basketball tournament in Mount Carroll with live music drifting across from the food truck row. The later one, for twenty twenty-six, is documented only by the event’s own site, which carries a team registration deadline of Wednesday 9 September and thereby places that edition in mid-September 2026 without printing its exact day.
Quick Facts
| Item | Record |
| Published name | PercyFest, also styled PERCYFEST on the event’s own site |
| Host town | Mount Carroll, the county seat of Carroll County, Illinois |
| Venue | Percy Park, Mount Carroll |
| Documented editions | 13 September 2025, and a mid-September 2026 edition |
| Centrepiece | A 3×3 basketball tournament played under FIBA 3×3 rules, double elimination |
| Food component | A Food Truck Festival with food, dessert and drink trucks |
| Admission | Free to the public |
| Team entry | One hundred twenty dollars per team, a participant fee only |
| Organiser | No organising body is named in any layer read |
| Attendance | No figure is published in any layer read |
History
The history that can honestly be written for PercyFest is short, because the layers read preserve only two editions and nothing earlier. No source states a founding year, a first edition, or even an annual billing, so there is no origin story to retell.
For a useful comparison, see the Carroll County Illinois Pumpkin Fest Festival for another county festival.
The first documented edition is the one held on Saturday 13 September 2025. A regional destination day-trip layer dated 8 September 2025 lists the date, and a companion destination blog layer dated two days earlier describes a basketball tournament run in the three-on-three format, with live music drifting over from a row of food trucks. Those two short pieces, published days before the event, are the whole of the independent coverage in the record. They confirm the town, the date, the tournament and the trucks, and say nothing about who organised the day or how many people came.
The second documented edition belongs to twenty twenty-six and rests entirely on the event’s own site. That page bills the gathering as a 3×3 Basketball Tournament & Food Truck Festival, sets out the programme elements described elsewhere in this article, and carries a team registration deadline of Wednesday 9 September. A deadline in the second week of September places that edition in the middle of the month, close to where the 2025 edition sat, but the page never prints the exact day, and no other layer read supplies it. PercyFest thus appears in the record twice, in consecutive Septembers; any longer past is undocumented in the material available.
What to Expect
Basketball runs the day. The tournament is played in the 3×3 format under FIBA 3×3 rules, with a double-elimination structure, so a team that loses once is not finished and the bracket keeps producing games deep into the event. Teams enter in advance — the twenty twenty-six page sets a registration deadline of Wednesday 9 September — and entry carries a fee of one hundred twenty dollars per team, a charge that falls on the players alone, never on the people watching.
Alongside the serious bracket, the organiser’s page lists lighter ways onto the court. A youth three-point shootout is offered free, giving younger players a contest of their own without an entry charge. A “Hawk Heave” contest invites entrants to attempt a nearly-full-court shot, the kind of low-odds, high-cheer moment that keeps spectators involved between games. The page also mentions contests generally and merchandise on sale.
The second half of the billing is the Food Truck Festival, a component bringing food trucks, dessert trucks and drink trucks together at the park. In the 2025 edition, as the destination blog layer tells it, live music played at the food truck row and drifted across toward the courts, tying the eating and the spectating into one scene.
Planning Your Visit
Admission works in the visitor’s favour, and its terms are worth stating precisely. The organiser’s page says the event is free to the public, so watching the tournament, hearing the music and walking the food truck row costs nothing at the gate. The only price printed anywhere in the layers read is the team entry of one hundred twenty dollars per team, a participation fee for entered squads and nothing to do with general admission. A spectator who never touches a ball pays no entry charge; a player pays through the team registration, which the twenty twenty-six page closes on Wednesday 9 September.
Getting to the ground uses the landmarks the organiser itself prints. The venue is Percy Park in Mount Carroll, and the parking directions on the event page point to the old school behind a filling station on South Main Street and Jackson Street, near the old Shimer College. No street-number address for the park appears in the layers read, so those named landmarks are the guidance the record offers. On timing, the documented pattern is mid-September: 13 September in 2025, and a 2026 edition fixed only loosely by its registration deadline, since the organiser’s page does not print the exact day. Anyone travelling for a future edition would need the date confirmed through the event’s own channels once published.
A Day at the 2025 Edition
Because an outside layer actually describes the 2025 edition, this sketch follows that edition’s shape rather than promising anything about a future year. The date was Saturday 13 September 2025, at Percy Park in Mount Carroll, and the destination blog layer published beforehand describes live music drifting from the food truck row while the tournament ran.
A spectator could spend the morning courtside, following the double-elimination bracket as beaten teams fought to stay alive in its lower half. Midday belonged to the food truck row, where the food, dessert and drink trucks formed the event’s second centre of gravity and the music played. The afternoon returned to the courts for the later rounds, with the youth three-point shootout and the long-shot theatre of the Hawk Heave breaking up the run of games. That is the documented day in outline: tournament basketball at Percy Park, food trucks beside it, music over both, and free entry for everyone who came only to watch.
PercyFest and the Pumpkin Fest
Mount Carroll keeps another autumn event on its calendar, and the two should not be blurred together. The Mount Carroll Pumpkin Fest is a separate, separately documented Carroll County event, carried by a chamber layer and dated 25 October 2025, with free entry. It belongs to late October, a full month after PercyFest’s mid-September ground, and nothing in the layers read connects the two beyond the shared host town. The contrast is mostly one of theme. PercyFest is built around sport: a 3×3 tournament run under FIBA 3×3 rules, with a registration deadline and a team fee, softened by food trucks and music. The Pumpkin Fest, as its name announces, sits in the harvest-season slot of the town’s year. A visitor choosing between them is really choosing a September day of basketball at Percy Park over an October event of a different character, and the records for each stand on their own evidence — the chamber’s for the Pumpkin Fest, the event site’s and the destination blogs’ for PercyFest.
Visitor Checklist
- Confirm the exact date of any future edition before travelling, since the twenty twenty-six page prints only a registration deadline, not the day itself.
- Head for Percy Park in Mount Carroll, using the old school behind the filling station on South Main Street and Jackson Street, by the old Shimer College, as the parking landmark the organiser prints.
- Bring no money for admission if you are spectating, because the event is free to the public.
- Set aside one hundred twenty dollars per team if you are entering a squad, and register before the deadline the organisers set.
- Plan to eat at the park, since food, dessert and drink trucks form the Food Truck Festival component.
- Give younger players their moment at the free youth three-point shootout, and leave time for the Hawk Heave nearly-full-court shot contest.
- Treat any longer history or crowd figure you hear as unverified, because no layer read publishes either.
Beyond Percy Park
The record supports only a modest look outward. PercyFest sits in mid-September in a county seat that also hosts the separate Pumpkin Fest in late October, so the event forms part of Mount Carroll’s early-autumn calendar rather than standing alone in it. The destination layers that noticed the 2025 edition were writing day-trip coverage of the region, which suggests the event draws some attention from beyond the town line, though no layer read measures how far its reach extends.
Why PercyFest Matters
A small event documented this thinly is easy to overlook, yet what the record shows has its own weight. PercyFest puts a structured, rule-bound tournament — FIBA 3×3 rules, double elimination, registered teams — into a public park in a small county seat, and wraps it in free admission, food trucks and music so the competitive core does not close the day off to everyone else. The free youth three-point shootout lowers the barrier for the youngest players to nothing at all. For Mount Carroll, the event fills the September slot with something distinct from the harvest character of its October Pumpkin Fest, giving the town two differently flavoured gatherings in one season. Its documented significance is local and practical rather than grand: a day’s sport, run properly, open to anyone who wanders in.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who organises PercyFest?
No layer read answers that. The event’s own site presents the festival without naming an organising body, and the two destination layers covering the 2025 edition name none either. This article records the gap rather than guessing at a committee, club or sponsor, because inventing an organiser would add a fact the sources do not contain.
What does the team entry fee cover, and is it the price of admission?
The one hundred twenty dollars is a per-team entry charge for squads playing in the 3×3 tournament, tied to the registration that closed on Wednesday 9 September for the twenty twenty-six edition. It is not admission. The organiser’s page states that the event is free to the public, so spectators pay nothing to attend.
What is the Hawk Heave?
The Hawk Heave is a shot contest listed on the organiser’s page for the twenty twenty-six edition, built around an attempt from nearly the full length of the court. It sits alongside the main double-elimination tournament and the free youth three-point shootout as part of the day’s basketball programme at Percy Park.
Where do visitors park for PercyFest?
The organiser’s page directs parking by landmarks rather than by a numbered address: the old school behind a filling station on South Main Street and Jackson Street, by the old Shimer College, in Mount Carroll. The venue itself is Percy Park, and no street-number address for it appears in any layer read.
What to Expect From the Next Carroll County Illinois PercyFest Festival
How often is Carroll County Illinois PercyFest Festival held?
The documented record shows editions in mid-September 2025 and mid-September 2026, which points to a September rhythm without proving a formal cycle. No layer read applies the word “annual” to PercyFest or states a founding year from which a count could run, so the honest answer rests on those two sightings: the event has appeared in September in the two years the record covers, and nothing in the sources guarantees its schedule beyond them.
When is the next Carroll County Illinois PercyFest Festival?
Nothing in the layers read announces an edition beyond twenty twenty-six. The most recent documentation is the event’s own page for that year, which places the edition in mid-September through its team registration deadline of Wednesday 9 September but never prints the exact day. A further edition would presumably sit in the same September window if the pattern holds, yet that is inference from two data points, and the record itself confirms nothing further.
Will the dates change?
They already move within their window: the 2025 edition fell on 13 September, while the twenty twenty-six edition is fixed only as mid-September by its deadline, its precise day unpublished. Nothing in the layers read ties PercyFest to a fixed date or a named weekend, so a future edition could land on a different September Saturday without breaking any published promise.
Closing
PercyFest, as the record presents it, is a free September day of 3×3 basketball and food trucks at Percy Park in Mount Carroll, documented for 13 September 2025 by two destination layers and for mid-September 2026 by its own site. Who runs it, when it began and how many people it draws are questions the published material does not answer, and this article has left them open deliberately. What can be said is enough to plan by: the tournament is real, spectators pay nothing, and the trucks and music are part of the billing. The rest awaits a fuller record.
