PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend Victorian Festival, which was scheduled for the third weekend in March, has been canceled for 2010.
Citing a lack of volunteers and funds and predictions of few visitors, the Northwest Chapter of the Victorian Society in America — which took over the festival last year — announced Sunday that the festival will not be held in 2010.
It hopes to bring a more elaborate version of the festival back in following years, said Nina Dortch, chapter president.
“We are very disappointed, but in order to put a good festival together and to draw visitors from throughout the [North Olympic] Peninsula and the Seattle area, we really need to be able to offer more than the one or two events we have been doing,” said Dortch.
Dortch said that the organization will be looking for a chairperson or director to plan a festival for 2011.
“Between the economy and lack of volunteers, it just isn’t going to work for this next year,” Dortch said.
The 2010 festival would have been the 14th for the event, which has included tours of the Victorian-era homes in Port Townsend, a grand ball, a fashion show and food-related events.
Though there won’t be a festival, Dortch said, some of the events will be held as stand-alone functions during the year.
They will be posted on the festival’s Web site, www.victorianfestival.org.
The Victorian Grand Ball will be held later in the spring; event information and pricing will be on the Web site when it is available.
The Victorian Fashion show, which was a fundraiser for the Jefferson County Historical Society, may also be held, but details have not been finalized.
“The fashion show was always very popular and may occur on its own, and some of the other events may as well,” she said.
In order to make the festival work, she said that more volunteers were needed.
“I think this is an issue many nonprofits are having right now,” Dortch said.
“People volunteer for so many things they get tired of volunteering.”
The Victorian Society in America took over the event in 2009 from the Jefferson County Historical Society.
“We hope that we can take this year to work on it and bring it back for a better festival in 2011,” said Dortch.
“In the past we’ve had about 4,000 people come to the Peninsula, and we, of course, hope for larger numbers than that.
“We would love to see more community involvement than we have in the past.”
She said that the organization also didn’t believe attendance would be good for the 2010 festival.
“Events like this tend to be a pleasure-type thing and in a bad economy are not everyone’s priority,” she said.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
