WHAT: The 4th Annual Rochambeau Festival offering highly dynamic, colorful, and action-packed historical visuals perfect for weekend morning broadcasts, midday updates, and evening packages.
WHEN: Saturday, June 6 & Sunday, June 7, 2026. Daytime festival is 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM (Both Days). Colonial Twilight Dinner is Saturday at 6:00 PM.
WHERE: Rochambeau Park (Yorktown Grange Fair Grounds), 99 Moseman Road, Yorktown Heights, NY
VISUAL & AUDIO HIGHLIGHTS FOR TV CREWS:
- Live Battlefield Action: Reenactors in full Continental and French regiment uniforms staging tactical maneuvers, complete with musket fire.
- Living History & Crafts: High-fidelity interactive sets including a replica of the historic “Hunt’s Tavern” hosting heated political debates, alongside blacksmithing, colonial games, and traditional craft demonstrations.
- Authentic Encampment Grounds: Broadcast live from a canvas tent city featuring active campfire cooking and full-immersion heritage displays on the exact soil where French forces camped.
- Saturday Night Candlelit Dinner: (Ideal for 6:00 PM live hits) Reenactors dining in period style, featuring acoustic performances of original, inspired 18th-century songs.
BACKGROUND: Commemorating the milestone 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, this annual event celebrates the critical international alliance between General George Washington and French General Rochambeau. The French forces camped on this exact patch of Yorktown soil in 1781 and 1782, plotting the movements that ultimately secured American freedom from Great Britain.
