PORT ANGELES — The 20th annual Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts spent a successful holiday weekend despite overcast and sometimes rainy conditions, Dan Maguire, executive director, said.
“A lot of people were saying that this year was maybe the best ever,” Maguire said in the waning hours of the festival Monday afternoon.
The festival, which featured four stages and several additional venues for music, dance and a street fair, began Friday and wrapped up Monday.
Rain is a regular part of the festival, Maguire said, noting that in the past two years since he assumed the festival’s top job, it has rained each year.
Maguire estimated that attendance was about the same or possibly a bit greater than that in the past few years.
Final attendance figures were not available.
Many festival vendors reported more sales this year, Maguire said.
A few vendors said they didn’t sell much but that being there was so much fun, it was worth it anyway, he said.
Maguire said all of this year’s bands arrived and were set up on time through the festival, and band changes at the stages, including those at the Vern Burton Community Center and the Elks Naval Lodge, went smoothly.
Having two stages for concerts at the Elks building downtown was new this year.
“I was wondering about the second stage, but it was totally full all the time,” he said.
After Hours in the Clubs, in which Juan de Fuca acts performed at Port Angeles nightspots, also went well, Maguire added.
This year was the first time all of the students of the Port Angeles School District attended a special Juan de Fuca Festival show at Port Angeles High School, Maguire said.
The show — featuring the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars — was held in the high school’s Performing Arts Center, where every student from kindergarten through the 12th grade could be accommodated in three concerts, he said
Elementary school students especially were on their feet for the band’s African and reggae sounds, Maguire said.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsula
dailynews.com.
