Planning for SummerFest began well before this summer. The director of Community Outreach brought this festival idea to the table last year and the District’s First Annual SummerFest was also a celebration of its 50th anniversary in August 2015. Although the 2015 event was canceled last minute due to weather, the plans were bulletproof and became a blueprint for this year’s event.

 

SummerFest is a celebration of summer and community for Bainbridge Island and it is an all day event lasting from noon to 9pm at Battle Point Park. They have about 25 exhibitor booths participating at the event that consist of community businesses offering their services and an interactive activity from the hours between noon and 4pm. Also starting at noon is main stage entertainment. From noon until 2:30pm a few of the exhibitors will be presenting on stage and then from 2:30pm to 9pm we have musical guests on stage. Other family activities include touch-a-trucks, classic cars, balloon clowns, face painting, a mountain bike course and food and beer gardens.

 

During my time here I have attended SummerFest meetings with District staff, canvased the island with posters, and helped plan miscellaneous parts of the event such as buying takeaways, ordering materials, and following up with vendors. I was a not a part of obtaining CHI Franciscan Health as our sponsor, but I was able to deliver banners to their facility and pick up checks from them. At our summer concerts I was able to promote the event by handing out seed packets with SummerFest flyers stuck on it, giving children Park Activity Books that encouraged park visits and a prize at SummerFest, and introducing people to our Facebook page to have the chance win one of our SummerFest Giveaway Baskets.

 

The week leading up to the event was all phone calls, going on site to make sure the grounds were ready for Saturday, setting up Thursday and Friday, and working from 8am to 10pm all day Saturday. The event ran extremely smooth but the turn out was undesirable. We hoped for an audience of about 1,000 but we estimate a turnout of around 500. This was the hottest day Bainbridge Island has seen all summer and these Pacific Northwesterns were not excited about SummerFest in the hot weather. Being a part of this event was still an amazing experience. Because it was such a huge event with such a long planning process the plans flowed together perfectly up to the event and played out better than anticipated, it was only participation from the public that lacked. I was lucky to be a part of this event as my last weekend in Washington.

 

Some recommendations I have for this event in following years is to start later in the day to allow cooler weather if possible. I also believe that with this time being so close to school starting (mid August), many families were not even on the island as they were getting last minute vacations in. We also should try to promote the event in more prominent areas and expand our approach and target market.