Washington State music lovers kick off the summer with the Sasquatch Music Festival in the Columbia Gorge each May, and they zip up to Seattle for the summer-ending Bumbershoot music-and-arts festival to bookend the season. Summers in the Pacific Northwest are all about enjoying as much of the nice weather as possible, since it doesn’t last long, so it’s a great excuse for people outside the state to come visit, too.
Bumbershoot started in Seattle in 1971, and has been a Labor Day weekend fixture since 1977. Festival-goers are regularly treated to local talent on the stage, but Bumbershoot has grown enough in stature over the decades to also attract big acts from all over the world. The “arts” part of the festival includes things like independent films, dance performances, poetry slams, and street performers, and there are plenty of vendors selling a variety of foods and arty souvenirs.
Incidentally, the word “bumbershoot” means “umbrella,” and that’s worth noting. Labor Day weekend in Seattle is usually perfectly lovely – but this is the Pacific Northwest, so anything could happen. People in this part of the world don’t let a little rain keep them from enjoying their festivals, however, so the show will most certainly go on – rain or shine.
>> Bumbershoot takes place each yer over Labor Day weekend
Most of us can remember the joy that the first days of summer vacation brought with them – and on the opposite end of the spectrum, the sadness that came with the last vacation before school started again. Labor Day weekend is, in the United States, essentially the end of summer and the last chance most Americans have for a vacation before the December holidays.
So you’re planning to fly somewhere over Labor Day weekend? The good news is that getting through the airport won’t be as much of a headache as it can be (and usually is) around Thanksgiving or Christmas. The bad news is that the airport is still going to be busier than normal, and planes are still going to be full. Which all adds up to one thing – it’s a very good idea to be prepared to handle a busy airport, even if said airport doesn’t materialize.
Labor Day weekend in the United States generally means backyard barbecues or summer picnics, and usually it’s a big gathering of family or friends (or both). Most of the time, it just means a road trip to wherever the festivities are taking place, but the idea of getting a great deal on a plane ticket over Labor Day might just make you rethink the ho-hum barbecue route.
The three-day weekend that is Labor Day in America is the traditional last hurrah of summer before kids head back to school and adults think about digging sweaters off the high shelves at the back of their closets – so it’s not surprising that people try to make the most of it by getting out of town and traveling one last time before they start hunkering down for the fall and winter.
There are some summer festivals for which the question “how do I get there?” is a major determining factor in whether you’ll go. A festival in the middle of nowhere is going to be tougher for people without a car to reach, there’s no getting around it. But you stick a festival in the middle of a major U.S. city and you’ve just made it instantly accessible to many more people.
Sometimes music festivals are held in rural locations far from a big city, and that’s when figuring out what airport to even look up in order to reach them can take a bit of research. But even when you hear that a festival is in a big city like Seattle, that doesn’t mean that you only have one option as far as flying to that festival.
Although some of the best music festivals have finished long before Labor Day rolls around, and although Labor Day weekend in the Pacific Northwest isn’t exactly always known for its gorgeous weather, there are way worse places to spend that last holiday weekend of the summer than in Seattle to enjoy the city’s fabulous Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival.
Let’s just say you’ve heard tales of a week-long festival in the desert where people enjoy an anything-goes attitude, release their inner performance artist, and cap the week off by burning a giant sculpture of a man. This event appeals to your bohemian side, but you don’t live anywhere near the Nevada desert – so that means you’ll need to book a flight. But just how do you find cheap airfare to Burning Man, anyway?
Labor Day is just around the corner, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to score some great last-minute travel deals for the upcoming holiday weekend. In fact, waiting until the last minute to name your own price on sites like Priceline often offers up the best opportunity to score the best price on