(adding frequent updates, including photos, at the bottom of this post – scroll down!)

(that whimsical chair’s on sale at the Art Dive tent, just north of Oregon, artist is Alicia Hopkins, mnahopkins (at) aol.com)
Our third and final day of frequent updates from the WSB Summer Fest HQ in the official Information Booth (come say hi, right in the Walk All Ways intersection at California/Alaska) starts shortly. Our team member who’s first on the scene reports things are getting busy already. The booths are scheduled to be open till 7 pm tonight (fixed typo from earlier – it is SEVEN, and the music continues till then too). More to come – you can find all the official info (including the music lineup) here. 11:58 AM UPDATE: Read More

(adding frequent updates and new pix through early evening – scroll to the bottom of this post)

That’s “Sonic Pezz” from the Rat City Rollergirls, at their dunk tank next to Shoofly Pie Company on the east side of California, north of Oregon. Meantime — three hours till the Street Dance – we’ll be here in the Information Booth at least till 7, then back to cover the Street Dance. Evening music interest is revving up, if the questions we’re getting here at the booth are any indication. Just had a lesson in “you never know who’s within earshot” — a booth visitor was asking some questions about West Seattle development, and where public input comes into the process, so we were giving a Cliff’s Notes explanation of the Design Review process – and then found out that Southwest Design Review Board member Deb Barker was standing barely inches away. (We didn’t misspeak about anything, Deb assures us.) Also dropping by moments ago: Michelle Edwards, former Hi-Yu Festival royalty (and daughter of Jim Edwards, who’s involved in tons of cool things from the West Seattle Big Band to next week’s American Legion Post 160-presented Grand Parade – we’ve got the list of entrants and we’ll post a few notes a little later). 5:27 PM UPDATE: Ryan Reese from Garlic Jim’s Pizza (WSB sponsor) is here talking with us and the Chamber folks now; our booth still has some shade on the east side. When WSB’s Patrick the Sales Guy brought back the RCRG dunk-tank pix you see above, he quipped, “The Rat City Rollergirls say it’s so hot, they’re now self-dunking!” 5:48 PM UPDATE: Not all the food booths are in the “food court” zone on the west side of Alaska – local venues along the street have stands too, like Husky Deli, where we caught owner Jack Miller working with the condiments:

And of course, the festival’s full of kids burning off energy – like the Junction Jam skateboard zone by Wells Fargo at 44th/Alaska:

Just realized we never posted this video clip from first thing this morning (9:30-ish) when Mayor Nickels and wife Sharon stopped by to say hi to Patti Mullen of the West Seattle Chamber, with whom we’re helping staff the Info Booth:

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6:09 PM UPDATE: OK, tonight’s hot music act is clearly The Saturday Knights – more than a few people have stopped by the Info Booth (where we’ll be till about 7; the rest of the Info Team has cleared out) to ask when and where they’re playing. (Answer: South stage, at California/Edmunds, 6:45 pm. Beer gardens at both ends of Summer Fest, by the way). Forgot to mention yet another notable visitor from the past few hours — Scott from Central District News, one of the few other serious neighborhood-news sites in the city (Scott was one of the other guests during our KUOW appearance a couple weeks ago) – he joked he’s here to check out the neighborhood-festival competition. 6:45 PM UPDATE: More scenes from today – first, the rock-climbing “wall” that’s part of the kids’ fun zone on Alaska east of California:

Another local vendor we’ve spotted – these are the glass clams from Avalon Glass Works, whose proprietor Shannon Felix has a booth here:

And one more scene of the amazing lion dance/martial-arts demo we mentioned in our first update.

More Summer Fest updates to come … with the street dance tonight, The Junction will jump well into the night. 7:12 PM UPDATE: Spare battery’s about to die, we’re going home to switch gear out and come back for the big dance. More later, including a couple other non-Summer Fest events we covered today.

(frequent updates, including photos and video, added at the bottom of this post throughout the afternoon)

If you want to see the West Seattle Hi-Yu Festival float up close and personal before the Grand Parade (one week from today; want to join the marching unit that WSB is part of? here’s how – and watch WSB later this weekend for some advance scoop on parade highlights) — it’s on display toward the north end of West Seattle Summer Fest today, just north of Oregon. Buy a “Luna Park” Hi-Yu button and support the festival, whose volunteers put on so many fun events each summer (Concert in the Park at Hiawatha, with West Seattle Big Band, is coming up Tuesday night). Not far from the float, you’ll find the first-ever Summer Fest Art Dive tent:

Again today, we’re with West Seattle Chamber of Commerce reps in the Information Booth (California/Alaska, heart of the “Walk All Ways” intersection) – stop by and say hi if you have a moment (and answer the informal survey we’re taking, with questions including “where are you originally from?” and “does West Seattle need a hotel?”. We’ll continue posting new pix, info, sightings, etc., all day as we did yesterday; already today, Mayor Nickels stopped by the booth on the way to the Ercolini Park dedication (video later; see the previous post for a photo from Ercolini), Peter Wolf from Neighborhood House stopped by to chat about the upcoming groundbreaking for the new center in High Point, and shortly afterward, High Point Neighborhood Association president Andrew Mead happened by. 12:25 PM UPDATE: We managed to catch up with “The Velvet Bulldog” (from the WSB Forums) during her volunteer shift at the West Seattle Food Bank booth, where you can buy $5 raffle tickets for some great prizes (including 2 unrestricted R/T tickets on Alaska Airlines or Horizon Air; the raffle ticket itself is good for discounts at Elliott Bay Brewery or Christo’s on Alki) – that’s her with the dark hair, with Barb Bollero, Elva Dodd, and Dee Hayward. The WSFB booth is on the east side of the block between Alaska and Edmunds.

Random note – following up on one of our stories from yesterday – Junior Member of the Team was off buying some sunscreen in Jefferson Square; he ducked into the Starbucks and (no, we didn’t ask him to do this) asked “Is this store closing?” and they said “Yes.” Future journalist, perhaps. 12:45 PM UPDATE: Dave Montoure from the festival-presenting West Seattle Junction Association just stopped by to tell us about the results of an impromptu veggie-hotdog-eating contest on the South Stage: Manny from Georgetown Brewing Company won, putting away 6; close behind with 5 1/2 was Marcus from West Seattle-based Schooner Exact. 12:50 PM UPDATE: A lion-dancing group just went by, from Belltown Martial Arts – down one side of California and back up the other, and now they’re performing right in front of us – here’s a photo from their first passby:

Video later (the show’s continuing – martial-arts demo now.) 1:45 PM UPDATE: Just talked with Alan Harrison from ArtsWest, who reminded us of something that Forum members had discovered — a season-ticket special that’s only being offered during Summer Fest weekend — buy a season ticket this weekend and you get a free ticket to “bare,” plus a $10 gift voucher. On the east side of the same block as ArtsWest, you’ll find Furry Faces Foundation, whose Teri Ensley is famous for the fabulous “F-Cubed” plant sales, among other things:

2:08 PM UPDATE: Lt. Smith and Sgt. Strand (seen in yesterday’s coverage) are back – just reunited another lost child with parent(s) – now they’re “14 for 14.”

(adding new info and photos frequently; keep checking the end of this post)

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(video added 2 pm, WSHS cheerleaders rooting for the football players’ food both; updated clip shortly)
Junior Member of the Team and your editor here just arrived to join The Sales Guy — and the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce — in the Information Booth at the heart of Summer Fest. There’s a great crossbreeze along Alaska, and we’re facing north, so if you need a place to cool off, this is it — stop by and chat a moment, and if you can spare a couple of moments, we’re informally collecting answers on some important community questions including the Water Taxi’s future and whether West Seattle needs a hotel — plus we want to know “where are you originally from?” just for fun — Summer Fest T-shirts are for sale here at the booth too, “I LOVE WEST SEATTLE” BUMPER STICKERS!!! too … 1:43 PM UPDATE: Lots of great people have come by already. West Seattle Hi-Yu Festival is selling buttons – you can get a Hi-Yu program (listing activities including Concert in the Park on Tuesday and the Grand Parade a week from tomorrow) for free here at the Info Booth – Carol Winston from Hi-Yu stopped by to say hi and leave a stack of programs. WestSide Baby is nearby drumming up support for its upcoming “Stuff the Bus” diaper drive – here’s WestSide Baby’s leader Nancy Woodland:

We’ve also talked with Suzanne Kellar from the Seattle Opera Guild, which brings opera previews to West Seattle and elsewhere – she says the guild makes money off the sale of the Entertainment books that’ll be out soon – if you’re interested, e-mail her: srkellar@aol.com … More to come as the afternoon goes on! Good crowd here but not too insanely busy yet. 2:25 PM UPDATE: Free Jones Soda! On the east side of the street between Alaska and Edmunds. Also, police are here to help keep an eye on things – we got Sgt. Strand and Lt. Smith on camera:

2:46 PM UPDATE: Carol Johnston from West Seattle Senior Center just stopped by. She’s handing out flyers for “Rainbow Bingo: Hot Summer Nights” coming up August 22nd at the Senior Center — adding it to the Events page now! We’ve also chatted with Nancy Driver, who’s organizing the big September 13th cleanup along the Fauntleroy end of The Bridge, from Walking on Logs to 35th/Fauntleroy. As we wrote the other night – e-mail her ASAP if you think you’ll be able to volunteer for one of the biggest and most important West Seattle cleanup operations in a longtime: ndriver@quidnunc.net – she needs to have some semblance of a head count sooner rather than later, and she’s got some big organizational milestones coming up. 3:01 PM UPDATE: The Jones Soda freebies are so popular, Deni Tyler (shown below) told us they handed out 2,400 cans in the first 3 hours of the festival. We recommend “Fufu Berry.”

More freebies – Leslie Thomson (left in the photo below) from Dream Dinners (WSB sponsor) has been handing out lemon-bar samples:

3:42 PM UPDATE: A sample of music – 30 seconds of Verona, playing earlier at the South Stage:

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4:01 PM UPDATE: Lots of nice folks we only previously “knew” via e-mail have stopped by to say hi. So glad to meet you all in person. We’ll be here at least another hour tonight, and we’ll also cover evening events even once the Info Booth shuts down – then we’re here starting at 10 am tomorrow. Also here tomorrow, among many others — the Hi-Yu folks tell us their Luna Park float will be on display tomorrow toward the north end of Summer Fest (around California/Oregon) — also we’ve heard from Furry Faces Foundation, which will be set up near Petco tomorrow and Sunday. That’s the same area where you’ll find the free Jones Soda; a rep from the promotional firm came by to tell us this is the first major event where they’re doing this – their goal is to give out a quarter million cans by summer’s end; they’re also proud to be the exclusive soda provider for the upcoming Seafair hydro races, and the Capitol Hill Block Party among other things. WSB contributing photojournalist Christopher Boffoli stopped by to say hi and has since sent some photos — first one is the midday crowd via long lens (really, it’s not a total zoo, but there are lots of people here having fun), second one is what Christopher describes as “Tow trucks being kept busy by people defying No Parking signs along Oregon”:

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4:34 PM UPDATE: Two more pix. First, Tamar getting her face painted (Alvis left a comment wondering if we’d be getting the classic festival kids-with-face-paint pix, this is the best we could do for starters); second, one of the many artist vendors here – Christy Varonfakis Johnson of On Focus Photo, who has contributed photos to WSB before, posing with her husband, Jeremy, in their booth here at Summer Fest, where they’re selling her work:

5:14 PM UPDATE: Quarter past five and the info booth hasn’t shut down yet, so we’re still here. As we just mentioned in a response to a comment from “d,” the pet area that will be set up by Next to Nature tomorrow and Sunday sounds great – water, a wading pool for pets, a cool place for them to get their paws off the asphalt, and more – Louis from Next to Nature stopped by and was telling us all about it. Lora Lewis from Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor) also stopped by the booth a few minutes ago and gave us the scoop that barista Blayne will be back in town next week sometime (he’s on the new season of “Project Runway,” which debuts Wednesday; here’s the scoop on the viewing party at Ginomai). Still a nice breeze blowing east-west on Alaska, where we are, and a great crowd but not too insanely busy – of course, the evening has just begun; live music will continue till about 9:15 tonight, but it’s not overwhelming if you’re not near the stages at the north and south ends – we really can’t even hear it from here in the central part of the setup. 5:47 PM UPDATE: Info Booth “officially” shutting down in a few minutes, we will likely stay here till about 6:30 posting updates. “Busy today for a Friday!” pronounced the Chamber’s Patti Mullen, with whom we’ve been sharing the booth today along with Chamber volunteers, as well as a volunteer selling Summer Fest T-shirts on behalf of the Junction Association. (Check back here tomorrow after 10 am for the “I Love West Seattle” bumper stickers that the Chamber’s selling, as seen in the photo below from earlier this year.)

7:02 PM UPDATE: Finally ready to fold it up, though events here are going to continue another hour plus. In addition to the official vendors with booths, there are folks working the crowd getting the word out about various endeavors, from political petitions to personal projects – among them, local musician Philip Mariconda (you may have seen him perform at C and P Coffee), who’s got a new album (Corporate Dysfunction; read about it here) – we asked him to pause and pose for WSB Cam:

Speaking of music … Coffin Break must be pretty popular … several people have just stopped by to ask which stage they’re playing on (answer: south stage, right now), and that’s the first band-specific question we’ve fielded all day. P.S. There are at least half a dozen Seattle Police officers here, and they have just reunited another lost child with his/her parent(s) – to quote one of the officers, “So far today we’re 8 for 8.”

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Right in the middle of California SW between Edmunds and Alaska, less than two hours after the street closed for West Seattle Summer Fest setup tonight (and the festival itself tomorrow through Sunday), we got that video in the middle of the crowd that gathered outside Elliott Bay Brewery, as Garry “Bubbleman” Golightly enchanted an all-ages crowd. Kids and even pets will find new additions during this year’s festival (highlights are listed here). Elsewhere, we found signs of impending fun at the West Seattle Junction Association-presented annual extravaganza:

That’s a dunk tank that was delivered next to Shoofly Pie Company, awaiting its assignment; almost directly across the street, next to Red Cup Espresso, cool treats — frozen Mighty-O Donuts! — are promised for what the forecast suggests will be a warm weekend:

West Seattle Summer Fest kicks off tomorrow morning. Hours are 10 am-8 pm tomorrow and Saturday, 11 am-7 pm Sunday. Live music runs a little longer Friday and Saturday, and starts at 1:45 pm tomorrow; here’s the music lineup for all three days. Meantime, the next photo shows where you will find us, and an all-star lineup of folks from the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce:

That’s the official West Seattle Summer Fest Information Booth, right in the heart of the “Walk All Ways” zone at California/Alaska; at least one member of Team WSB will be there every moment it’s open, till at least 5 pm each day – please come by to say hi, and if you can spare a moment or two, we’ll have a few questions for you as we help the Chamber build an informal “community profile” – we’ll be posting them online too – everything from where you’re originally from (if you’re not a West Seattle native) to whether you think WS needs a hotel. By the way, the road closures for Summer Fest as set up tonight are as follows: Alaska from 42nd to 44th, California from Genesee to Oregon and then again from Oregon to Edmunds (west-east traffic is allowed through on Oregon). Temporary bus changes are detailed here. See you this weekend in The Junction; we’ll be posting numerous reports about the people, the events, the fun, the food, and more, as it all unfolds (and of course, other West Seattle news too!).