5:31 PM: In the heart of The Junction, the streets are now closed for West Seattle Summer Fest setup:

Until post-festival breakdown/cleanup is over late Sunday/early Monday, California is closed between Genesee and Oregon (main stage through Saturday night, Farmers’ Market on Sunday) and between Oregon and Edmunds, while SW Alaska is closed between 42nd and 44th. (Find bus reroute info here.)

Tonight while setup is under way, it’s Summer Fest Eve, a chance to walk in the street and enjoy bonus features such as street performers, chalk art, and a dance “flash mob” around 7:15 pm. Plus, many businesses are open for the July West Seattle Art Walk – find tonight’s list, and artist previews, here (two special Art of Music performances too!).

Art Walk, of course, stretches beyond The Junction. You’ll also find venues to the north and south, especially in Morgan Junction and Admiral. In the latter, West Seattle Grounds (2141 California SW) is featuring art and music tonight – the former with Dan Jacobs (below right), the latter with Michael Pearsall (below left):

Lots more coverage to come!

6:29 PM: That’s the crowd gathered by Walk All Ways for Aurora Ave. Here’s a slice of their performance:

At California/Oregon, for The Art of Music, Hopscotch is performing until 7:45 outside the Alki Arts pop-up on the ground floor of the Senior Center:

And of course, there’s art too. Inside Verity Credit Union (4505 California SW; WSB sponsor), West Seattle artist T. Frick is showing her work tonight:

7:08 PM: A crowd is gathering for the promised DancePowered “flash mob” at Walk All Ways. And steps away, Easy Street Records‘ premiere of Ryan Cory‘s mini-documentary about fabled music photographer Lance Mercer (below) is coming up at 7:30 pm.

(Lance Mercer and daughter Mackenzie, who was assisting with sales)

8:30 PM: Another epic performance – here’s part of it:

Then the dancers invited onlookers to, as the song went, “bust a move”:

Leading it all, Jennifer Cepeda:

Meantime, we made one more art stop – the makers’ market at Jet City Labs:

That’s Lora Radford with her Extra Glorious creations. (Pre-pandemic, when Lora led the West Seattle Junction Association, she would have been running around overseeing pre-festival logistics; tonight, she just got to mingle with shoppers. Stop into JCL – a couple doors up from Easy Street – to see what’s up, all festival long.) Up the street, the stage and beer garden area was starting to take shape north of SW Oregon:

The festival officially begins at 1 pm Friday. Preview everything – vendors, music, food, kid stuff – at westseattlesummerfest.com. We’ll be in the Info Booth at Walk All Ways as in years past – stop by and say hi when you’re at the festival!