Salisbury RiverFest 2007 in pictures

Time for me to play photojournalist again and give you something to enjoy on a Sunday evening.

Yesterday I spent the better part of the day at RiverFest. Here’s a little of what you missed if you didn’t go.

This was the fourth annual event. Obviously I wasn’t here to see the Salisbury Festival during its inception and formative years but RiverFest certainly doesn’t have the participation or the crowds that the springtime Salisbury Festival has. This despite the fact both are sponsored by the same group – the Salisbury Chamber of Commerce. In RiverFest’s case, there’s a little more of an environmental focus, like this trailer:

While I didn’t get a blog-sized photo of their setup, rest assured the Chesapeake Bay Foundation was present. They were running the boat rides up and down the Wicomico River (it’s their boat on the left in the top picture above.) That was a popular event as each ride sold out pretty quickly. That was one thing I didn’t do that I would have liked.

But I did get my classic car fix. This was just one of the beauties they had there.

The Wheels that Heal classic car club is a regular participant in events like these. With over 80 cars there, it showed that a lot of people are interested in preserving Detroit’s heritage, not to mention in this case helping out the Maryland Food Bank.

There were a lot of antique and trinket shops open along the Plaza downtown. Unfortunately as you can see, I’m not sure it did them much good.

Even the jazz trio that was playing at the time I walked through wasn’t drawing a crowd. But it did make for one of my favorite photos of the event.

Speaking of music, the booth where I spent the majority of my day was placed in such a manner that we had the giant inflatable slide between us and the stage. So I didn’t really get to hear a lot from the various bands that were there. When I took my break, I did walk over and caught a song or so from two of them, along with the picture.

I thought it was pretty funny how they had the stage set up, just worked the bands down from one end to the other.

Where I was situated most of the day was the area of the stage and rides, the little field at the corner of Main and Lake Streets. This is a shot of some of the other booths there.

Of course, one would guess if they attended which booth I worked at.

Gilchrest on the left, Harris on the right. Appropriate, don’t you think? No, we really didn’t plan it that way, it just happened.

If I recall correctly, last year the Democrats also had a booth but this time they were no-shows unless of course you count the radical environmentalists who vote that way if there’s no one from the Green Party on the ballot.

Regardless, most of what we had on our table were holdovers from the Farm and Home Show booth we had, with the exception of the Ron Paul items in the middle. In the photo, the Paul cards are being held down by the pile of pens next to the basket of suckers. We generally joke that it’s how we represent the Democrats.

There are two other observations I’d like to share about the event. There were a few who complained that there wasn’t much in the way of publicity for RiverFest. Because we were in last year’s event, we were contacted but there wasn’t the big push in the media that I’m aware of. Even Joe Albero wasn’t at the event too long, although apparently he found a more important event to cover. I did see one of the news channels taking shots at RiverFest as well, they were shooting where the Segway demos were occurring.

I do want to thank those who helped out with our booth at the event. Gail, George, Dave, Bob, Dustin, John – I appreciate your assistance. Be ready for the Autumn Wine Festival! I also want to thank again the gentleman who complemented me on monoblogue, even though he is a confirmed Democrat. We can change that you know.

So another RiverFest is in the books. I think they did have a little better attendance and support than last year, but whether the Chamber of Commerce wants to maintain an event which probably isn’t a moneymaker remains to be seen.