In less than two weeks, the streets of downtown Brookhaven will be filled with people shopping, playing, eating and enjoying the many features of the 41st Ole Brook Festival.

Committees within the Brookhaven-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce have been hard at work preparing for the festival. It is set for Oct. 2 and 3, though signs of the upcoming event may be seen as early as Thursday evening when some food vendors set up to be ready to go on Friday.

There will be some festival action on Friday, with live entertainment starting at 6 p.m. and ending at 10 p.m. There will also be opportunities to preview some of the shopping and food as vendors set up early. Railroad Avenue and the railroad parking lot will be closed to traffic starting at 4 p.m., when the stage will be set up. Whitworth Avenue will be closed from 5 p.m. onward.

Friday night’s entertainment lineup, spearheaded by Brookhaven Music’s Tyler Bridge, has every spot filled and will run until 10 p.m. Stage acts include: Shaw Furlow, Toby Norton, Mississippi Goodnight, Andi Cotten and Tyler Bridge and Sam Mooney will wrap up the evening.

Saturday morning will be kicked off with a 5K Walk/Run to raise money for MSGirls4acure. The run will begin at 8 a.m.

A new animal exhibit feature of the Ole Brook Festival will also start at 8 a.m. Saturday, said Garrick Combs, director of the Chamber of Commerce. The county’s 4H students will host the animals on West Cherokee Street.

Stage entertainment will begin at 9 a.m. and run until 4 p.m. Acts include Southern Classic Cloggers, Ryan Rushing, Clementine, Vonda Laird as well as performances by students from Mississippi School of the Arts and Brookhaven Music.

The Ole Brook Festival Car Show will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, with awards given out right after lunch. The cars will be located on North Railroad Avenue from Cherokee to Monticello streets.

The kids’ zone feature of the festival has been expanded this year, and includes a four-station bungee jump, a 28-foot slide, an obstacle course and bounce houses. Combs said there will be a variety of activities for different ages in the area. A $10 arm band grants access to the zone all day, which will be in the north parking lot. It opens at 10 a.m. and will conclude at the end of the festival at 4 p.m.

Combs said the Ole Brook Festival is downtown Brookhaven and the Chamber of Commerce’s signature event for the year, and he thanks all committee members and volunteers for making the huge undertaking possible.

“There’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into it […],” Combs said. “But the traffic and people and sights make it more than worth it every year. If you haven’t been before, then just the view of the vendors all the way down Whitworth and the view of the kids’ zone and opportunities for food vendors is well worth coming out and seeing. We love to bring in so much pedestrian traffic to our downtown area.”

For more information on the Ole Brook Festival, visit brookhavenchamber.org or contact the Chamber at 601-833-1411. All registration forms for vendors, the 5K and the car show are available at the Chamber’s website.