HAPPENING NOW: West Seattle Summer Fest 2015, day 2, report #1

One hour into Day 2, and West Seattle Summer Fest is abuzz! Until 2 pm, visit the Community Tent along the south wall oF Easy Street Records, and you’ll find members of the West Seattle Community Orchestras:

Also in the Community Tent right now – the West Seattle Block Watch Captains Network. Throughout the festival, you’ll find reps of cool community groups there, to tell you more about what they do and how you can get involved. The Community Tent schedule for the rest of the festival:

Saturday 10 am – 2 pm
West Seattle Block Watch Captains’ Network
West Seattle Community Orchestras

Saturday 2 pm – 6 pm
West Seattle Be Prepared
Southside Revolution

Sunday 11 am – 2 pm
South Seattle College Parent Cooperative Preschool
See Dogs

Sunday 2 pm – 5 pm
Seal Sitters
Empower Mentoring Program

You’ll find some other local nonprofits interspersed with the vendor booths. Among them, the West Seattle Food Bank – west side of California between Oregon and Alaska – where you can buy a $5 raffle ticket for some great prizes.

And since lunch time is approaching, we thought we’d offer a quick video tour of the food zone today – the first :15 Instagram clip is the east half (east of the alley between the two new Junction 47 buildings), the second one is the west half.

Note the traditional fair food – deep-fried PBJs, elephant ears, curly fries – as well as heartier fare (including local restaurants Bang Bar and Matador). And if you haven’t been to The Junction since last Summer Fest, note some additions – Pagliacci Pizza is now open for slices, Coastline is open across the street from there (burgers), among others. Outside the food zone, you’ll find a few other spots, such as the QFC booth north of us, selling fruit kabobs ($3 or $4 with chocolate), coconuts ($4), water ($1), soda pop ($1), peanuts in the shell ($1).

Speaking of water, bring your own bottle and get it refilled at the GreenLife area toward the south end of the festival zone. GreenLife also has ongoing demonstrations, talks, and performances – the schedule is here.

12:24 PM: Compared to the heat wave we went through in recent weeks, today feels almost a little chilly. But nice. We’ve also noticed a few light droplets from the sky … major rain is NOT in the forecast so far but be ready for anything. Music’s under way up at the stage – right now, it’s Pig Snout, which is a family group, playing family music.

Concertgoing is a family adventure too:

The stage, if you haven’t been here yet, is at the far north end of the festival, as is the beer garden, and that’s just north of Pet Junction (bet you can guess what that’s about). Electronic duo Navvi is up at 1 pm.

Back here in the heart of the festival zone, if you saw our item last night about applying here for an ORCA LIFT card – you can do that at the green-tent Metro booth just west of us:

Be sure to bring along the verification info they need. Metro’s not the only transportation agency here – if you have questions about the Highway 99 tunnel project, WSDOT is on the east side of the block between Alaska and Edmunds:

1:26 PM: Had our first missing-child situation a little while ago – hope it’s not information you need while here at the festival, but if you do, come to the Info Booth, and we’ll summon help – festival staff, police, etc. Speaking of the latter, we’ve just checked in with Southwest Precinct Lt. Ron Smith, who supervises the officers assigned to the festival, and he says it’s been pretty quiet.

1:35 PM: We mentioned the WS Food Bank raffle earlier – another benefit raffle you’ll find here at Summer Fest is at the Orca Network booth (#26, on the east side of California between Alaska and Edmunds) – $1, you don’t have to be present to win; winner will be drawn Sunday night and you’ll be contacted if it’s you. Here’s the flyer listing all the prizes, donated by local businesses.

2 PM: Timbre Barons are on stage now. When you head up that way, duck into the beer garden photo zone!

Susan Melrose of the Junction Association shared the photo of Josh Sutton and Susan Sutton. And speaking of tropical … the sun is finally starting to make a cameo appearance; the temperature’s been perfect, but it’s been cloudy all day – now, a sunbreak off to the west. Another contributed festival photo – this one from Ryan:

The mound o’fries is a popular choice in the food zone on Alaska east of California; on the west, it’s shift change at the Community Tent, with West Seattle Be Prepared and Southside Revolution there now, until 6 pm. Just talked to WSBP reps – be sure to get the new postcard showing where the Emergency Communication Hubs are – 13 in West Seattle now!

11 Replies to "HAPPENING NOW: West Seattle Summer Fest 2015, day 2, report #1"

  • MrsT July 11, 2015 (12:34 pm)

    Maybe you covered this in a previous post, but what is the status of the farmers market tomorrow?

    • WSB July 11, 2015 (1:07 pm)

      “Old location” – the lot at 44th/Alaska – just for tomorrow. Same hours, 10 am-2 pm. (Keep in mind 10 am is an hour before the Sunday start of the festival.)

  • JayDee July 11, 2015 (1:07 pm)

    Drivers and Peds beware the unmarked intersection of Genessee and California. People are not treating it as a 3 or 4 way stop. I nearly saw a couple of accidents in a 15 minute period waiting for the bus…..

  • Junctionite July 11, 2015 (2:27 pm)

    We just had someone who decided it was acceptable to park blocking our driveway for the last two hours. Perhaps you could provide a reminder that this is not acceptable just because you don’t want to walk a few more blocks. Thanks!

  • Ray July 11, 2015 (2:36 pm)

    Junctionite, have them towed. That is a fire hazard to you and the city, but it is also an inconvenience as well.

    You can make it a trifecta and make it a learning experience for the offenders.

    There is no valid explanation they can give for blocking your driveway.

  • Wasteland July 11, 2015 (2:38 pm)

    Have them towed. Anyone who’s selfish enough to do that deserves to have some unpleasantness in their day.

  • jetcitydude July 11, 2015 (3:55 pm)

    No Summer Fest for me this year. Main reason the music lineup is horrible. Its like grunge,punk garbage? I thought we lived through that era already or maybe they call it something else now? please edificate me. No good mix of different genre. Not like I’m missing anything anyways.

    • WSB July 11, 2015 (4:19 pm)

      Sorry you don’t like it … actually it’s a mix of genres. An electronic duo followed a family trio this morning, La Luz last night, maybe somebody in the mix is “punk/grunge” but certainly not the majority. But music is like so many other things … one person’s awesome is another person’s awful. Always seems to us each year like many people come just to mill around, see friends and neighbors they haven’t seen in a while … come down tomorrow if you change your mind! – TR

  • Diane July 11, 2015 (5:02 pm)

    not familiar with any of the music/band names, so have no idea if bad/good

  • Driveway blockers July 11, 2015 (5:46 pm)

    I’ve seen a lot of driveway blocking, even blocks north of the Junction. They block a driveway when they could drive half a block and have their pick if spots. Doesn’t make sense.

  • Eve July 11, 2015 (9:53 pm)

    I would feel bad having someone towed but I’d call parking enforcement so they’d get a ticket. I Live near the junction and I constantly had people blocking my driveway on both sides. Once I even said to someone as they were leaving their car, ‘excuse me! Could you please not block my driveway?’ And she scoffed, ‘ugh, like you can’t get your car out?!’ Another time a person said, ‘just back straight into the driveway across the street and pull out that way!’
    Haha I can’t believe the nerve of some people. Anyway I decided to paint the edges of my driveway yellow which has helped quite a bit. When people ignore it and block the driveway I go online and put in a service request and a parking enforcement comes out and writes up a ticket.

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