Coeur d'Alene trio of events draws big numbers

COEUR d’ALENE — Unofficially, this weekend’s downtown festivities broke records. The Street Fair, Taste of Coeur d’Alene and Art on the Green all reported there were more people strolling around and buying goods this year than ever before.

At Taste of Coeur d’Alene, food trucks were selling all of their food and the Citizen’s Council for the Arts, the organization that runs Art on the Green, gave away all its event programs and sold all of its fair merchandise, something that has never happened before.

“The weather issue Sunday put a little crimp in the style, but the first two days were awesome,” said Dave Kilburg, vice president of the Idaho Panhandle Kiwanis Club. “The number of people that participated and showed up was substantially more than last year’s”

Kilburg also said the revenue from the beer garden just from Friday was more than all three days last year combined.

Dave Eubanks, the incoming president at the Idaho Panhandle Kiwanis Club, is proud to see how far the entertainment part of Taste of Coeur d’Alene has come.

“We’ve really stepped up our entertainment here… and brought in a spectacular array of local talent, we’ve had rock and roll bands, country music, fiddlers and aerials artists,” he said. “I don’t think this park has been better utilized in its history going back 100 years.”

“It’s a great opportunity for people from around here to be outside and experience the arts, the food, the music and there’s just a lot of fun stuff to do,” Kilburg added.

Emily Boyd, the events coordinator for the Coeur d’Alene Downtown Association, said about 25,000 people showed up each day to The Street Fair.

“Saturday was a really great day,” she said, commenting on the weather. “We probably hit that 25,000 mark.”

According to Terry Cooper, the manager of the Downtown Association, the way people shop is very weather dependant. With Sunday’s thunderstorm, people weren’t shopping as much, but once the storm cleared, they were right back out there. With 250 vendors, people had a lot to choose from.

“The best part is all the diverse products that are available,” he said. “The Street Fair has a variety of individual booths that have something available for anyone to enjoy, from low to medium to high-end products.”

Jolie Bazler, the volunteer coordinator for Art on the Green, was also moved by how popular Art on the Green was.

This year, the focus was on bringing in emerging performers for entertainment. Combined with the beer and wine garden, physical art wasn’t the only thing people were gathering for.

“The Take Five Jazz Combo from Lake City High School in Coeur d’Alene had a huge crowd. We had even added more chairs and they were all full,” Bazler said. “We’ve never had such big crowds.”

Her favorite part of the whole thing, Bazler said, was the great work by the volunteers to make the event go off without a hitch.

“I work behind the scenes so I get to see what people do to make this happen,” she said. “I see the people who can’t park in their garage because a wok’s in there and the people that go to bed at 2 and wake up at 6 to prepare for the next day. It’s all really beautiful.”