Find your next treasure, discover the fun of rockhounding when The Crystal Festival comes to town

CONTRIBUTED CONTENT — Utah is rich with geological marvels, and the adventurous nature of rockhounding appeals to everyone from kids to seniors. Find your next treasure at The Crystal Festival, a rock, gem and mineral show organized by locals for locals.

The Southern Utah edition of The Crystal Festival will be held Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 2-3, at Washington County Legacy Park in Hurricane. Vendor booths will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. both days. The event is family-friendly with fun activities for kids and completely free to attend, including parking.

“The Crystal Festival is every rockhound’s happy place,” said Adrienne McElwain, the event’s founder. Known throughout Utah’s rockhounding community as The Crystal Barista, McElwain sells unique crystal products and teaches geology classes online, at local co-ops, in public schools and around the country as a guest speaker.

The Crystal Festival is a celebration of the love of crystals. It started as a trunk show at Rockpick Legend Co., a rock shop in Salt Lake City that was owned and operated by McElwain’s father, rockhound and author Rick Dalrymple, until his retirement in 2018. Now traveling throughout Utah and surrounding states, this geological extravaganza has grown into an exciting event for all ages.

“I do it 10 times a year, and I’ve done it by request in all of the cities we’ve gone to,” McElwain said. “It’s very much a community show.”

The Crystal Festival features vendors from across the West with a wide variety of stones to choose from. You can buy all your favorite pieces while also learning more about how they’re mined and used from local mine owners, lapidary artists, jewelry artists and crystal healers. Vendors will be on hand to answer questions about their products and offer suggestions on what type of stones might be right for you.

Sponsored by Utah Rock Collectors, Earth’s Treasures Crystal Shop and Minerals 4 All, the event has plenty to offer experienced treasure hunters as well as anyone just getting started on their rockhounding journey. Attendees can learn how to cut and polish rocks, sign up for geology classes, book tours of mines and discover great rockhounding sites.

“Utah has over 400 different rocks and minerals to go find,” McElwain said. “If you want to get into rockhounding, this is the place to do it.”

Young adventurers will have a blast panning for gold, digging up fossils and learning about various rocks in the children’s corner. Activity passes cost just $10. The Crystal Festival also provides workbooks for elementary, middle and high school students that tie in with Utah’s Earth science curriculum.

For McElwain, who has spent a lifetime playing in the dirt, The Crystal Festival represents an opportunity to share her passion for rockhounding and the unique rocks and minerals still waiting to be discovered.

“It’s a thrill, like being a little bit of a modern pirate,” she said. “You walk into the middle of the desert, you dig up treasure, and you get to keep it!”

Learn more about The Crystal Festival at crystalfestival.org.

Written by ALEXA MORGAN for St. George News.

• S P O N S O R E D C O N T E N T •

Event details

Sponsored content may be submitted to or developed by St. George News for publication on behalf of the sponsor and in the sponsor's interest. It may include promotional pieces, features, announcements, news releases and advertisements. Opinions expressed in sponsored content are those of the sponsor and not representative of St. George News. Sponsors have no influence over St. George News reporting and product apart from their own sponsored content.

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

CONTRIBUTED CONTENT —