Agata Popęda here, ready for the West End Celebration. Make sure you come this Saturday or Sunday to Sand City to take part in the city’s iconic street festival and taste everything local—music, arts, crafts, food and drinks.
For Monterey County residents—and for Sand City residents—the festival has been a more than two-decade-long annual experience, which many look forward to each August. Families and friends gather every year, the same vendors pop in year by year, and Sand City’s arts and craft studios open their doors for the crowd.
West End Celebration started as a truly grassroots event, conceived by a group of artists, led by Gregory Hawthorne; the first edition of the festival took place in his building on Ortiz Avenue. The event was so much fun that soon, the Sand City City Council got interested. The City officially took over the festival about eight years in, Hawthorne recalls, and the West End Celebration grew from there, with Steve Vagnini being responsible for programming. “He did a great job,” Hawthorne says.
This year the festival was programmed for the first time by organizers from Santa Cruz, selected by the City Council following an RFP process.
“They have this great, positive vibe,” says City Manager Vibeke Norgaard about Matthew Swinnerton and Nadja De Maeseneer of Event Santa Cruz.
All West End Celebration elements stay in—the music, the vendors and the vibe—but some members of the community are anxious to see if this year’s festival will actually feel the same. To learn more about this issue—and about The Rumba Madre, one of the bands that will play on the main stage at 2:30pm tomorrow, Saturday, Aug. 23—read my article in the current issue of the Weekly.
You can also come to the West End Celebration and see for yourself. The music lineup seems exciting. Next to The Rumba Madre, on the main stage we will see The Expendables (Santa Cruz), Eyes Like Lanterns (Santa Cruz) and Monks of the Blue (Monterey County).
Have a great weekend.
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