OAKLAND — A new summer festival that has been in the works for half a year is ready to kick off this weekend.
OakFest, a three-day celebration in downtown Oakland, will feature a parade, a street dance, an open-air market and a triathlon.
Organizers want to bring back the town’s summer festival that used to be organized by the Oakland Lions Club, but that lost steam and was abandoned years ago. The event is intended to match summer events offered in the neighboring communities of Waterville, Winslow and Fairfield.
The project has been one of the goals of Town Manager Gary Bowman, who took office last September. Bringing the community together with an in-town summer festival has the potential to boost tourism, support local businesses and generate interest in the community, he said.
A community committee was established to organize the event earlier this year, and it was able to bring it all together in a remarkably short time, said Ryan Johnson, one of the committee members.
“This group pulled this off in six months, basically,” Johnson said.
“It was quite the effort, quite the group,” he added. “We had a great team that made this happen.”
The festivities will kick off on Friday with a parade through downtown Oakland. The parade starts at 6 p.m. at Messalonskee High School and winds down Pleasant and Church streets before ending in Haymarket Square, the intersection of Church and Water streets. The parade is followed by a street dance from 7 to 9 p.m. on Main Street.
On Saturday, the sports fields next to Williams Elementary School on Pleasant Street will be transformed into a open-air market featuring food, arts, crafts, live music, antique vehicles and comedy. The market runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Almost 60 vendors have registered for stalls at the market, according to Johnson. The OakFest website lists an assortment of vendors, including quilters, jewelers, painters, massage therapists and cheese makers. A tasty assortment of local food offerings will include barbecue, Greek gyros and lobster rolls.
The market will include a special section for children that will feature firetrucks from the Oakland Fire Department, a petting zoo and games. Festival sponsors will offer raffles for tickets to the Portland Sea Dogs, a cruise on Messalonskee Lake and 25 pounds of lobsters.
The festival ends on Sunday with a “paddle, pedal, pound” converted triathlon that replaces the swimming section with a kayak paddle on Messalonskee Lake. The competition consists of a 2.5-mile paddle, a 12-mile bicycle ride and a 3.1-mile run. Registration for the race starts at 7:30 a.m. at the boat landing on Old Belgrade Avenue.
The event originally was going to feature a barbecue competition, but organizers canceled the event after only two contenders signed up, Johnson said. Still, there is a full slate of events for the first year of the festival, and organizers are hopeful they can use it to grow in later years.
“People are starting to chat about it,” Johnson said. “It seems like the word is out.”
“As long as the weather cooperates, I think it will be a big hit,” he added.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.