70th Annual Maine Lobster Festival Begins

Maine Public | By Associated Press

Published August 2, 2017 at 5:52 AM EDT

ROCKLAND, Maine - Lobster lovers rejoice! The 70th annual Maine Lobster Festival gets underway Wednesday.

Festival goers are expected to put away some 20,000 pounds of lobster at the event in Rockland, which runs through Sunday.

Highlights include the coronation of the Maine Sea Goddess, a cod carrying contest and a parade down Maine Street. But the real star of the festival will no doubt be the lobster dinner.

The Maine Lobster Festival has been cited as one of the best food festivals in the country. It was the subject of a 2004 essay in Gourmet magazine by David Foster Wallace, who described the event as "enormous, pungent, and extremely well marketed.''