Gilroy’s got its groove back, as the famed Gilroy Garlic Festival was resurrected in its reeking glory Friday morning. It’s much smaller than before, and sold out, but it now has a free livestream, and you can try your luck in a small ticket exchange.

It has to be cathartic for the city of Gilroy, California, that their renowned Gilroy Garlic Festival has returned after what was effectively a five-year hiatus. There was of course the horrible 2019 mass shooting at the festival that killed three people and injured 17 more, then COVID canceled the 2020 festival, 2021 was an in-car “drive-through” event, and in 2022, organizers simply pulled the plug on the festival for financial reasons.  

But as of 10 am Friday morning, festival organizers announced “The bulb is lit,” and indeed they do have a garlic clove replica torch that they lit up! The gates are now open and the 2025 Gilroy Garlic Festival is underway. Though as KRON4 points out, tickets are sold out, as they are only allowing 3,000 attendees per day, and 9,000 for the weekend. (Previous iterations in the festival’s heyday would draw 100,000 attendees over the weekend.)

But if this does anything for you, there is a Gilroy Garlic Festival livestream that’s going all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It’s mostly live bands on the main stage, but there are cooking segments each day, and an apparently garlic-themed band called The Stinkin’ Locals playing Friday at 5:15 pm. You can find the full weekend livestream schedule here.

And what’s this? The festival's website does offer a ticket exchange, and as of early Friday afternoon, we are seeing a small number of single-day tickets available for Friday or Saturday only ($35). We do not see the required parking passes on sale, but those parking passes are available on a third-party ticket site ($25).

So if you manage to make it to the reborn Gilroy Garlic Festival, realize it is no longer at its longtime venue Christmas Hill Park. It is now at the vastly smaller South County Grove at an amusement park called Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park (3050 Hecker Pass Highway). So the Gilroy Garlic Festival may be peeled down, but it’s an absolute delight to see the return of one of NorCal’s most charming smalltown summer festivals.

Related: Gilroy Garlic Festival Announces Its Glorious Return for 2025 [SFist]

Image: People lined up to buy garlic ice cream at the 2007 Garlic Festival, Gilroy, California. (Getty Images)