Suffolk’s historic downtown will have bands, motorcycles, scooters and peanut royalty strolling down Main Street this Saturday to kick off October’s Peanut Fest-ivities.

The 2019 Peanut Fest Parade will begin on Saturday at 10 a.m. and is free and open to the public. Staging for the annual parade will take place in the Lakeside neighborhood, then the parade will proceed down West Washington Street, turn left onto North Main Street and finish at Finney Avenue.

The parade is expected to last about an hour, with approximately 100 different parade units bringing excitement to downtown Suffolk, according to Angie Twiford, assistant director of Suffolk Festivals Inc.

There will be several different bands from the region participating the parade, many Suffolk businesses and the Suffolk Peanut Fest Queen and Princesses. The grand marshal for the event this year is the Peanut City Cloggers, Twiford said.

Annual favorites will return to once again liven up Main Street, including the wild array of different parade units provided by the Khedive Shriners, Twiford said.

“I think people really look forward to them because they have some really great units,” she said. “They’re a good part of the parade. If you’ve got the Shriners in the parade, then you’ve got a parade.”

2019 marks the 42nd anniversary of the Suffolk Peanut Festival, the city’s premier, family-friendly event that “honors the city’s agriculture heritage and devotion to peanuts, our favorite legumes,” according to suffolkpeanutfest.com.

Peanut Fest will be held from Oct. 10-13 at the Suffolk Executive Airport. The theme for this year’s Peanut Fest is “let the sun shine, it’s Peanut Fest time,” and the parade on Saturday is just the beginning of the fun.

“It gets everybody in the spirit, knowing that next weekend, (you’re) going to Peanut Fest,” Twiford said.

Visit suffolkpeanutfest.com for more information.