Everything ran so smoothly at the 40th annual Kent Cornucopia Days festival that even drivers struggling to find parking spots obeyed the no-parking signs.
“We had absolutely no incidents,” said Bill Westcott, director of the festival run by the Kent Lions service club. “We didn’t even have to tow any cars. That’s the first time in a long time we didn’t have to tow a car.”
Crowds were as large as ever. Festival organizers estimated more than 250,000 attended Cornucopia Days, which ran July 7-10.
“We had a great crowd and the weather cooperated immensely,” Westcott said. “It was not rainy and not too hot and that allowed for a lot of people.”
Westcott said the crowd estimates are tough to make because people can enter the downtown street fair from so many points. And other events are spread out around town, including a soccer tournament, fun run, skateboard competition, dragon boat races and carnival rides.
Police officers told Westcott that more people lined Fourth Avenue Sunday for the grand parade than they had seen in years.
“We did have to tell one family to move from a spot where they were not allowed to watch the parade and they told us ‘we can’t find a place to sit along the route,'” Westcott said.
A strong wind did cause one glitch Saturday at the dragon boat races at Lake Meridian when two boats collided.
“We redid the race,” Westcott said. “That delayed the races about one hour.”
A record number of 48 teams participated in the dragon boat races. There were about 70 participants at the skateboard competition at the Arbor Heights 360 Park on the corner of Southeast 240th Street and 116th Avenue Southeast.
“That’s up from the 42 we had last year,” Westcott said.
Another 489 people took part in the 5K fun run and walk, down slightly from 2010.
More than 600 vendors lined downtown streets and event sites with food, crafts, information and other types of booths. The number of vendors was down about 25 from last year.
“The police did an outstanding job of control,” Westcott said. “Everyone for the most part was very helpful and friendly.”
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