For now, the corner of Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue looks like any other early-fall corner in Niantic. Scheer Park sits next to the train fence, and nothing on its small patch of ground hints at what's coming. By November 21, it will hold a small tree farm hung with hundreds of decorated buoys. Each one was decorated by someone in the region, a local organization, or a business. Niantic Main Street's event page says it plainly: "Each buoy has a story and all are amazing!"
Those stories start this month. Buoys by the Bay isn't built by a contractor or a parks crew. It's built from blank buoys that neighbors buy in October, take home, decorate, and return. The display is produced by Niantic Main Street and the East Lyme Public Trust Foundation. Every tree in it reflects choices made weeks earlier at a few counters on Main Street and a table at the farmers market.
Where the Blank Buoys Are Right Now
Niantic Main Street's 2026 listing names four places to get a buoy:
- Mermaid Liquors
- Café SoL
- Coastal Gifts on Main
- The Niantic Farmers Market, on Thursdays
The farmers market is the outlet with a clock on it. The 2026 market season runs June 18 through October 22, Thursdays from 3 to 6 p.m., in the Methodist Street parking lot. As of today, October 9, two market days are left, on October 15 and October 22. After that, the three Main Street shops are the remaining outlets on the list.
October 15 is also Niantic Ladies Night, which runs from 3 to 8 p.m. in downtown Niantic. The second-to-last market and the evening downtown event overlap that afternoon, so one trip can cover a buoy pickup and the Main Street shops.
Two details for 2026 haven't been published yet. The current listing gives no buoy price and no date for returning decorated buoys. In 2025, Niantic Main Street listed buoys at $50 and asked for them back by November 7 to be included on opening night. Those were last year's terms, and this year's may differ. The shops selling buoys or Niantic Main Street can give the current answer.
What Three Seasons Show About Sold Versus Hung
The display started in 2023. That first year, organizers sold all 300 buoys at $50 each and hung them on five trees, according to WFSB's coverage of the opening season.
Since then, The Day's reporting has shown a gap between the number of buoys sold and the number on display. In the second season, The Day reported in November 2024 that 270 buoys had been sold and 180 decorated buoys had been returned for display at the time of its story. When The Day covered the 2025 installation, almost 300 buoys had been sold and just over 200 were hanging on the five trees.
Both counts were taken while the display was going up, and more buoys may have been added later. In 2024, 90 sold buoys had not yet come back when The Day counted. In 2025, the gap between buoys sold and buoys hung was close to 100. The trees in Scheer Park can only hold the decorated buoys that make it back before installation.
Those returns also pay for things beyond the display. The Day reported in 2025 that proceeds are split between Niantic Main Street and the East Lyme Public Trust Foundation. The money funds year-round events and supports local nonprofits. A buoy left unfinished on a shelf still counts toward that funding. It just doesn't show up on the trees.
The Decorating Weeks
The weeks between buying a buoy and returning it line up with East Lyme's busiest stretch of fall weekends. Several of those events are about making things by hand too.
End of Harvest at Samuel Smith Farmstead, Saturday, October 17. The farmstead and East Lyme Agribusiness host a free event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 82 Plants Dam Road. It includes live farm animals and cider and applesauce making for kids. New this year are tables where children can paint sugar pumpkins with paint markers and take them home. Irish blacksmith Derek Collins will demonstrate traditional techniques at his forge and anvil and talk about the craft's history in New England. Details are on the Patch event listing and the farmstead's calendar.
Trick or Treat at Miracle League Field, Saturday, October 24. East Lyme Parks and Recreation's online calendar lists a Trick or Treat event from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Miracle League Field. The calendar entry doesn't name an organizer, so check the details before you head over.
Halloween storytimes at East Lyme Public Library, October 27 to 29. The library's autumn storyhour schedule has three themed sessions that week:
- Storytime Fun, Tuesday, October 27, 10:30 to 11 a.m., in the Community Center Activity Room
- Baby Sign and Sing, Wednesday, October 28, with sessions at 9:30 and 10:30 a.m., in the Children's Storytime Room
- Sing & Stomp, Thursday, October 29, 10:30 to 11 a.m., in the Community Center Activity Room
LibraryCon, Saturday, November 14. The library's event returns from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the East Lyme Community Center.
LibraryCon is the last event before the buoy trees go up. Last year's return date of November 7 fell a week earlier. If 2026 follows a similar schedule, the decorating window closes well before Thanksgiving week.
Opening Night, Then Everything Routes Past Scheer Park
Opening night for Buoys by the Bay is Friday, November 20, from 5:30 to 6 p.m. in Scheer Park. The display runs from November 21 into mid-January.
Once the trees are up, Niantic's main holiday events keep passing that corner.
The 23rd Annual Niantic Holiday Stroll is on Small Business Saturday, November 28, from noon to 6 p.m. downtown. Niantic Main Street lists more than 25 shop and restaurant specials, roaming characters, and carolers from The Music Studio. There's also a Shop Small contest and visits from the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who. Families can follow the Mermaid Elf Trail, which hides elves dressed as mermaids in shop windows. The stroll's own description points families to the buoy trees in Scheer Park. At 5 p.m., Santa and Mrs. Claus arrive at the Liberty Green for the tree lighting. Niantic Main Street is an all-volunteer organization, and its volunteers produce the stroll as well as the buoy display.
Saturday, December 12, has two events that bookend the day.
- Niantic Jingle 5K, 10 a.m. The race starts at McCook Point Park and raises money for the Brian Dagle Foundation and Brian's Healing Hearts Center for Hope and Healing. Registration is on the race page.
- Niantic Light Parade, 6 p.m. The Town of East Lyme's parade page sets the route from Columbus Avenue down Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, ending on Grand Street. The rain or snow date is Sunday, December 13, at 5 p.m.
The parade turns at Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, the same corner where Scheer Park holds the buoy trees. A buoy decorated at a kitchen table in late October will be hanging there as the parade goes by.
The library adds a few smaller December dates the same week. Santa visits Storytime Fun on December 15, Baby Sign and Sing on December 16, and Sing & Stomp on December 17.
The Season in One List
- Oct. 15: Niantic Farmers Market, 3 to 6 p.m., and Niantic Ladies Night, 3 to 8 p.m.
- Oct. 17: End of Harvest, Samuel Smith Farmstead, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Oct. 22: Last Niantic Farmers Market of 2026, 3 to 6 p.m.
- Oct. 24: Trick or Treat, Miracle League Field, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Oct. 27 to 29: Halloween storytimes, East Lyme Public Library
- Nov. 14: LibraryCon, East Lyme Community Center, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Nov. 20: Buoys by the Bay opening night, Scheer Park, 5:30 p.m.
- Nov. 28: Niantic Holiday Stroll, noon to 6 p.m., with the Liberty Green tree lighting at 5 p.m.
- Dec. 12: Niantic Jingle 5K at 10 a.m., and the Niantic Light Parade at 6 p.m.
Our team at Dan Contino works in the towns along this shoreline, and we follow what Niantic Main Street and the East Lyme Public Trust Foundation put on each year. If you have questions about East Lyme beyond the holiday calendar, please contact us.
