BRINNON — After a year’s absence, the Brinnon ShrimpFest has returned with verve.
“We didn’t have this [festival] last year, and there were a lot of people who really wanted this to happen this year,” said Phil Thenstedt, one of the organizers for the Emerald Towns Alliance.
“We were looking for new blood, and the new location will make it a lot better.”
ShrimpFest 2013 takes place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday in the field behind Yelviks General Store, 251 Hjelvicks Road at U.S. Highway 101.
Celebrating the shrimp
The event — a fundraiser for the Emerald Towns Alliance, a civic nonprofit in the Brinnon-Quilcene areas — has been around in one form or another since 1994 and is intended to celebrate the Hood Canal spot shrimp season, which is in May.
Memorial Day, which gives shrimpers time to get their catch prepared, became obvious as the right time for the commemoration.
For several years, ShrimpFest took place in nearby Dosewallips State Park.
But the 2011 implementation by the state of the Discover Pass, which requires a one-day $10 pass for every vehicle to park, mucked up the works.
The ShrimpFest organizers were unable to strike a waiver deal with the park system, and they could not afford to pay the event fee to the state that would have taken the place of the passes’ revenue.
Thenstedt said ShrimpFest was going through a transition anyway, with a lot of past participants no longer willing to take part in the festival.
That was then.
New location
The corner turned for 2013 when the event found a new home 3 miles north of the old location.
The new space has more room for visitors and more parking, which is included in the cost of admission — $4 a day or $6 for two days (kids younger than 12 and active-duty military are admitted free).
Thenstedt said the layout is more welcoming than the park, which located the event in the middle of the woods.
“The last ShrimpFest laid out all the vendors in a grid,” he said.
“This year, we are putting it all in a circle around the stage area.
“The land is a natural amphitheater with a view of the mountains and the water that you can see from everywhere.”
The festival features 80 vendors, including craft booths, food booths, exhibits, a beer garden, live music and activities for children.
Belt-sander races
The big event returns: the festival’s renowned belt-sander races, in which contestants soup up their power tools and race them along a plank.
The races take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. today, at which time contestants take belt sanders that are decorated with caricatures such as ducks or devils and race them down a 50-foot wooden strip.
The track confines the sander to a narrow path, so the only control the “driver” has is to turn the sander on or off.
Every contestant races against each other, with the winners earning trophies and cash prizes.
Live music also is a big part of this year’s ShrimpFest.
“In past years, the music stopped and started. This year, it will go on all the time,” Thenstedt said.
“As soon as one group finishes, another will start.”
The special performers are Seattle cover band Seduction at 1 p.m. today and local favorite Locust Street Taxi from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday.
Performers onstage both days are the Old Sidekicks, Greg Parke, Eric Miller, Kendra and James, an Elvis Presley tribute artist.
Thenstedt said past events have drawn around 1,400 people during the two days, but he expects that number could be lower because of the one-year lapse in 2012.
He said ShrimpFest could draw people who are driving on U.S. 101 from one destination to another — a surprise for travelers who will stop to see what it’s all about.
For more information, email shrimpfest@hotmail.com or phone 360-796-4456.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
