Kempenfest organizers say they are pleased with how the event has kicked off as big crowds jammed the Barrie waterfront on the event's first full day on Saturday.
“We had a great night last night, and ticket sales for Down with Webster were through the roof, so that was good,” Kempenfest chairman Robert Stones said while among hundreds of visitors and vendors along the lakeshore.
There are over 300 arts and crafts vendors, numerous food vendors, an expanded midway, a poutine village, and two licensed patios.
“We are looking forward to a great weekend,” said Stones.
With free attendance at an outdoor event, gauging how successful the festival is has always been a challenge.
“We have something new this year — we have onsite surveys being conducted, and an online survey,” he said. “The goal is to do 2,000 onsite surveys. We are also using Tourism Barrie’s technology to capture cell phone data from the mobile towers, and they’ll be flying a drone over (the site), as we would like to get more accurate attendance (figures). We had over 100,000 attendees last year, and are hoping to be over that this year.”
Gordon Buist, an antiques and oddities vendor from Montreal, has been selling at Kempenfest for almost 30 years now.
“It’s top-notch,” he said. “Beautiful people and beautiful scenery. Good organization and good promoters.”
“It’s in your blood,” Buist said of buying and selling as a vendor. “I like collecting and I like socializing with people.You meet a lot of interesting people from all walks of life.”
He deals mostly with oddities.
“It’s very popular, especially with women. You’d be surprised, with the skulls and everything that they would be horrified, but nine out of ten of the women love them, and that one percent hate them and they want to bury them,” he chuckled.
He’s been coming to Barrie every year and says he's never had a bad experience as a vendor, “and it doesn’t matter the weather. It’s the number one (festival).”
Meanwhile, Raquel Kerr, of Barrie, passes by, hauling a kids wagon filled with new found loot.
She has scored a giant green glass jug she plans to fill with wine corks, a couple of wooden games, and lots of dips and oils, and “all the good food stuff,” she says. “Stuff that I didn’t plan on buying.”
Kerr loves the atmosphere and treasures of Kempenfest, and likes to spend a day here with her girlfriends, “and we just make a day out of it, then we head back to my house and talk about our treasures. And fill up the bottle with wine corks,” she said as she disappeared into the crowd with her wagon.
