PORT ANGELES — The city will be swinging this weekend with the annual Jazz in the Olympics Festival.
But one mainstay will be missing: the popular Elks Naval Lodge ballroom, which was damaged by fire in December.
Since the festival’s inception in 2000, the downtown Elks building has hosted numerous traditional and swing jazz bands, and the ballroom’s ambiance has lured several jazz enthusiasts.
“Usually the same people went to the Elks every year,” festival director Gary Sorenson said Wednesday.
“They loved the dance floor, and they loved the atmosphere, so it will be a little disappointing.”
The feeling is mutual, Elks board member and construction project manager Ron Johnson said.
“We’re disappointed not to be able to have the Elks Lodge be one of the venues, too,” Johnson said. “But that was just unavoidable.”
New construction on the lodge is expected to be finished later this summer.
For the jazz festival, meanwhile, the loss of one venue means an expansion to a new site — the Eagles Club, which boasts a larger dance floor and can seat 50 more people, Sorenson said.
Because the Eagles Club is on the city’s east side, about 1½ miles from downtown, a shuttle bus circulating among venues will now arrive every 30 minutes rather than every 15 minutes, Sorenson said.
The festival’s other venues remain the same as last year’s — the Red Lion Hotel, Vern Burton Community Center and the City Council Chambers at Port Angeles City Hall.
For a complete schedule of festival events and more information, see Peninsula Spotlight in Friday’s Peninsula Daily News.
