SEQUIM — The three-day, 2014 Sequim Lavender Weekend came to an end Sunday afternoon, but not before exhausted organizers declared the weekend a rousing success.
The number of visitors to the fragrantly themed collection of tours and arts events in and around Sequim, organized by the Sequim Lavender Farmers Association and the Sequim Lavender Growers Association, was thought to be about the same as 2013 or a little better.
From vendor response, spending was up, according to the organizers.
Final visitor numbers will not be available until later this week, as the two lavender organizations tally their sales and get reports from the 12 farms on the combined tours.
The 18th Sequim Lavender Festival Street Fair, organized by the growers association, attracted at least 20,000 visitors to more than 150 lavender, craft and food booths located in downtown Sequim, and to the growers association’s seven lavender farms in the Sequim area, said Mary Jendrucko, executive director of the growers association.
“It was standing-room-only,” Jendrucko said.
Attendance was about the same as the past few years, but vendors at the street fair were doing a brisk business, and many were already asking to sign up for booths at the 2015 event, she said.
Lavender farmers on the farmers association’s five-farm Heritage Lavender Farm Tour reported big, happy crowds.
“It’s been fairly busy,” said Kortney Oen, who has been a farm assistant at Purple Haze Lavender for the past six years.
Oen said she and others at the farm estimated that the number of visitors is up from totals of previous years.
“People are content to sit and listen to the music and look at the lavender fields,” she said.
The farmers association also sponsored the Lavender Arts & Crafts Fair in the Park, at Carrie Blake Park.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
