UPPER EAST SIDE — Manhattan Country School is holding its last Farm Festival at its Upper East Side home before it moves west next year.
The 45-year-old tradition is set to open on Oct. 17, featuring fresh produce, games, bouncy houses, live music and a space-themed haunted house.
Earlier this year, the school announced it would be moving to the Upper West Side to what will be the former Mannes College The New School for Music in August 2016.
The festival is the school's last chance to make a lasting impression on the neighborhood, according to Angela Johnson Meadows, the communication manager for the school.
"We're pulling out all the stops to make this Farm Festival our best one yet," Johnson Meadows said. "This year's Farm Festival is a chance for us to thank the Upper East Side and Harlem communities that have provided such a welcoming, supportive home for MCS over the past 49 years."
Festivities this year will include arts and crafts, games, bouncy houses, and a flying dragon ride, as well as fruits and veggies from the school's farm in the Catskills for sale. Kids will also get the chance to wander through a haunted house staged in the basement of the school's 100-year-old building, according to Johnson Meadows.
Tigre, Jason Moran and the Fats Waller Dance Party with Alicia Hall-Moran and Juan Usera and the Sambuco Tribe will be performing live starting at 11:30 a.m., she said.
For decades, the festival has celebrated the school's connection to farming — it has a 180-acre working farm in the Catskill Mountains, where students spend 17 weeks running the farm and becoming "capable managers of farm chores, observers of animal and plant life and analysts of environmental issues," Johnson Meadows said.
"[The festival] is our way of bringing a bit of the farm to the city each year," she added.
The school will be moving to a larger space next August to accommodate a growing student population. At 27,044 square feet, its new Upper West Side home is nearly double the size of its current space, according to the school.
The student body, which is now at 203, is expected to hit 400 students by 2020, according to the school's website.
"The Farm Festival has endured for 45 years because of the positive relationships we have built with the people, businesses and organizations within our community," Johnson Meadows said.
"Once the work of planning and executing this year's event is over, we'll begin the process of planning for next year, which will include building mutually beneficial relationships with those in our new neighborhood and adapting the event to our new home. We hope everyone who has been so supportive of our event on East 96th Street will join us on the Upper West Side in 2016," she continued.
Admission to the festival is free. Tickets for the school's raffle can be bought in advance and an online auction will go live on Oct. 14. The event will take place at Manhattan Country School, at 7 E. 96th St. between Fifth and Madison avenues, and runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
