This weekend’s forecast is calling for winter.
This Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 4 and Feb. 5, the Lake Havasu Area Chamber of Commerce is hosting the 37th annual Winterfest street festival on Main Street. According to event organizer Amanda Mehaffey, the chamber’s biggest fundraiser of the year will stretch all the way from Smoketree Avenue to Acoma Boulevard.
Winterfest will feature over 200 vendors set up in Lake Havasu City’s downtown that Mehaffey says ranges “from arts and crafts vendors to commercial vendors to local vendors.” Vendors have traveled from all over the country Mehaffey says including Washington, Utah and Ohio.
“This will be the first year since the pandemic that we have filled up (the festival),” Mehaffey said.
Mehaffey says she has 50 vendors on a waiting list who diligently follow up each day to see if a spot has opened.
“They fill out an application every day, they are calling every day so people are showing a lot of interest,” Mehaffey said.
In addition to vendors, Mehaffey says the street festival will also have inflatable bounce houses, live music and a beer garden.
According to Mehaffey, most of the volunteer shifts for the event have been filled; there are just some remaining slots for gate watching shifts and breakdown when the event is over on Sunday.
In addition to being a big fundraiser for the Lake Havasu Chamber, Mehaffey says Winterfest is also popular with the businesses on McCulloch Boulevard where the festival takes place.
“They look forward to this every year because people go into their shops as well as walk up and down Main Street,” Mehaffey said.
Even restaurants within the event’s vicinity, Mehaffey says, ended up having hour-long waits to be seated.
In the eight years that Mehaffey has worked with the chamber she says she hasn’t seen a Winterfest as big as the one planned for this weekend. Mehaffey is hopeful the festival will exceed previous attendance records of 30,000 attendees.
The 37th annual Winterfest is happening this Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Havasu’s downtown district.
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