KINGSTON, N.Y. — Food, family, live music, entertainment and culture will rule the day on the Rondout Waterfront when the Ulster County Italian American Foundation’s Ulster County Italian Festival returns Sunday, Oct. 8, from noon to 8 p.m.

Festival Chairman Anthony Tampone said he hopes this year’s festival will build on the success of last year’s event, which drew record attendance.

“Last year we had between 8,000 to 10,000 people,” Tampone said.

Like last year, the festival will feature two stages, including one programmed by the O+ Festival, which runs from Oct. 6 to 8 and features art, music and wellness clinics for artists throughout the streets of Kingston.

Returning this year from New Orleans are favorite jazz and swing act Louis Prima Jr. and the Witnesses at 6:30 p.m., headlining the Main Stage housed on a large stage owned by the city.

Fans of crooners of days gone by like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin will not want to miss Mike Dell’s Tribute to the Rat Pack’s one-hour set starting at 3:30 p.m. A Kingston native, Dell’s been a fixture at area bars and restaurants for many years, Tampone said.

Also performing on the Main Stage are the Leonisa Ardizzone Quartet, the Vince Chiarelli Band and Andrew Hoben and Ars Choralis.

The O+ Stage will feature music from all over the world, including the Portuguese/Brazilian Folk act Benji & Rita, West African group M’bollo, Mexican folk act Pulso de Barro and Studio Stu & The Rhythm Method’s upbeat jazz sounds.

Food will also take center stage, with choices ranging from Italian American favorites like sausage and peppers to Graziano’s softball-sized meatballs. Tampone recommended zeppoles, a lemon-sized piece of fried dough with powdered sugar.

“It tastes better than regular fried dough,” he said, although he couldn’t pinpoint why.

Other food options will include local favorite Savona’s Pizza, another brick oven pizza vendor, and calzones, along with treats like cannolis and espresso.

Tampone also spotlighted Renaissance Pesto’s wide selection of pesto sauces and naked noodles homemade pasta.

The food selections extend beyond Italian food to include empanadas and jerk chicken, along with vegetarian and vegan options.

The popular spaghetti eating contest returns at 12:40 p.m. by the Main Stage.

The festival will feature 61 different vendors, including the Downtown Farmers Market, which will move behind the Main Stage, Tampone said. Beyond music, the festival will feature street entertainers throughout the day, including a special performance by the Vanaver Caravan at 1 p.m.

Entertainers will include BeeBee the Clown, who will be juggling and making balloons, and minstrels performing on accordion and mandolin, Tampone said. Special opportunities will include change to pose beside people dressed as everything from Roman gladiators to the gondoliers in Venice, he said.

The festival will also feature a number of “backdrops” for photos.

“We’ll have a fake gondola that looks like it’s in the water, an Italian street scene, the Mona Lisa and the Leaning Tower of Pisa,” Tampone said.

Cultural activities will take place in the Clearwater Barn at the Hudson River Maritime Museum. “This includes six hours of storytelling,” he said.

Sitting at a picnic table in T.R. Gallo Park, Tampone shared a brief history of Italian immigration to the Hudson Valley. He said while he is a New York City native, many Italian immigrants in the area settled in enclaves in East Kingston in the town of Ulster, Glasco in Saugerties and Highland.

“The men worked in the brickyards and the women worked in the lace mills,” he said.

“The Italian immigrants worked the grunt jobs that no one else wanted,” he said, adding that many came to the U.S. when they couldn’t find work back home.

“They’d come to the U.S., get up, have a family and set up their family of the next generation to be better off than they were,” he said.

It’s an immigrant story that’s been told time and time again throughout U.S. history, continuing to this day, Tampone said.

It takes about $50,000 to put on the festival, according to Tampone. He said most of the funding comes from a large contingent of sponsorships from area businesses, with the city pitching in $5,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds and Ulster County Tourism pitching in $3,000 that allowed the foundation to expand its advertising efforts farther afield to Greene, Albany and Sullivan counties.

Tampone said the festival has come a long way from 2015 when the foundation held the first Italian American Festival after taking over a smaller-scale event held by a group of Downtown restaurants. The eateries, including fixtures like Savona’s Trattoria and Mariner’s Harbor, had started the event featuring food and some live music as a way to bring in more business during October when business traditionally slowed as temperatures fell, he said.

Tampone said an expanded fleet of Ulster County Area Transit shuttle buses will serve the festival, They will be running from Kingston Plaza and the Kingston High School parking lot. A handicap-accessible shuttle bus will run from Kingston Point.

For more information and a full festival schedule, visit https://ucitalianamericanfoundation.org/.