Cranberry area hosts 57th international polka festival
MARSHALL TWP, Allegheney County — Thousands of musicians, dancers, and enthusiasts gathered just over the Butler County line from Thursday, Aug. 28, through Sunday, Aug. 31, for the International Polka Association’s 57th annual Polka Festival and Convention.
The bulk of the activities were held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh/Cranberry, located in Marshall Township, while Thursday night was marked by a welcome party at the Cranberry Elks lodge.
Chris Bogdon, Cranberry native and president of the IPA, said this marks the fifth-straight year Cranberry Township has played host to the event, and it will do so again next year.
“We have one more year here after this. We’re contracted for one more year,” Bogdon said. “We hope it stays here.”
Bogdon, who is the only president of the IPA in its 57-year history to not hail from Chicago, was the one to suggest moving the annual convention to the Pittsburgh area starting in 2021 due to the region’s extensive polka culture.
“Butler County and all of Western Pennsylvania is a very big polka hotbed,” Bogdon said. “There are literally polka dances every single week in Western Pennsylvania.”
Before its arrival in the Cranberry area, the convention called Buffalo, N.Y., its home.
The convention was a truly national event, with attendees and bands flocking to Western Pennsylvania from across America and farther.
“There’s people here from California, there’s people from Oregon, there’s people from Arizona,” Bogdon said. “There’s people from Canada, Chicago, Michigan, Milwaukee, all that stuff.”
Bogdon estimates that the attendance for this year’s festival was in the thousands. And he said the love for polka in Cranberry Township runs so deep that the final dance on Sunday night was scheduled to run until 1 a.m. although he expected it to last longer.
“There’s a good chance that they’re going to play until 2 in the morning because nobody will want to leave,” Bogdon said Sunday afternoon.
On Saturday, the IPA also officially inducted the five members to its Hall of Fame Class for 2025: Mark Janson, Johnny Krawisz, Richard Sala and the late Bob Earl, Sr., and the late Chester Pala.
