Do I HAVE to always go to Festivals?

[Bella]

I've started a new character and going to the Dance festival seems a waste of a day. Do we HAVE to go to every festival? Does not going affect affinity etc.? Anyone know?

[luggage]

No, you don't need to go. However, if you want to avoid the festival, you must avoid entering the area that the festival is held in. Some festivals are held at certain times like 9am to 2pm, and if you arrive after 2pm, everything is back to normal.

The only thing you miss out on is an easy way to chat to everyone and thus keep your affection going for everyone, plus the chance to win/buy the rare scarecrows and other items. Also, festivals do not take the normal clock into account ... you can be as long as you like in real life and it will always stay open until you decide to leave (and you arrive home at 10pm).

[Saint Landwalker]

Originally posted by luggage:

The only thing you miss out on is an easy way to chat to everyone and thus keep your affection going for everyone,

I believe it has been determined that "festival talking" does not count towards improving one's relationship with other characters.

[Bella]

I only go to the ones where you can't win stuff to talk to everyone lol
Think I'll skip the ones like Dance and Jellyfish for now then.
Thanks

[𖤐Mori𖤐]

Dance is good for the shop, which has a rarecrow and a furniture item or so, and a recipe to make that item. The jellyfish is w/e, so far i've enjoyed most of them, the dance one would of been better if I actually got 4 hearts with some one so I have to wait till the next year to take advantage of that with my wife.

[daklo]

**NEW MOD** Useful Dance Of The Moonlight Jellies Festival
Description: Pierre will now open up a souvenir shop that sells a new rarecrow.
(It's essentially a stick with a big glowing jellyfish on top)
- 3,000 gold.

[Rio]

Pierre will now open up a souvenir shop that sells


Jellyfish bobbers.

During fishing the fish meter has a chance to be frozen in place


Jellybait

When fishing with this bait there is a 20% chance two fish will be caught instead of one.

[luggage]

Originally posted by Landwalker04:

I believe it has been determined that "festival talking" does not count towards improving one's relationship with other characters.

That bites. You pretty much lose a day if you are trying for the 10 hearts on all chars.

[AbsoluteZero]

Yes

[xicewindex]

Originally posted by Saint Landwalker:

Originally posted by luggage:

The only thing you miss out on is an easy way to chat to everyone and thus keep your affection going for everyone,

I believe it has been determined that "festival talking" does not count towards improving one's relationship with other characters.

This is changed sometime ago:

From the wiki:

Festivals
Main article: Festivals
20 friendship points are earned for speaking to villagers at festivals, the same as any non-festival day. Three festivals can have special effects on friendship points with villagers:

The Flower Dance increases friendship by 250 points (one heart) with the player's dance partner.
The Luau can increase or decrease friendship points with all villagers except Sandy, the Wizard, Krobus, and the Dwarf. This depends on the ingredient that was added to the soup.
The player's gift to their secret friend at the Feast of the Winter Star is worth 5x the normal amount of friendship points.
In addition, giving gifts to villagers at the Night Market will increase friendship with them, in the same way as it does outside of festivals.

https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Friendship

[BeardedPleasures]

Short answer is "No"

Better answer is "Why not?"

Twice a month you have an opportunity to just break away from what you're doing for two minutes, grab some free prize (usually), and remember that you're part of a community. Everyone's play-styles are a bit different, but I think we could all use a snapping out of our (in-game) daily routine.

Plus your wife'll be happy you joined.

[Adam]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.