Beach jazz fest a great success
[attach]555[/attach]It may have been a wet couple of days for Beach residents whose basements were flooded as a result of torrential rains, but for those attending the [url=http://www.beachesjazz.com]21st Annual Beaches International Jazz Festival[/url] at Kew Gardens July 25–26 the weekend was anything but a wash.
“Overall it was a great success,” said festival executive director and founder Lido Chilelli just hours after cleanup of the event ended on July 27.
The festival ran July 17–26 in various Beach locations, including Woodbine Park, Queen St. East and Kew Gardens.
Rainy weather did add a sour note to some festivities, said Chilelli, as one musical act had to be cancelled and another cut short. But many festival-goers came equipped with umbrellas, he said, as there was a lot of excitement that led up to the event.
In recent years the annual event has drawn over 500,000 visitors and Chilelli guess that numbers were down about 10 percent this year. In spite of the city strike and the bad weather, he said the event went very well.
And considering those challenges, the streets looked the cleanest in the city due to their festival clean-up efforts, he said.
“You wouldn’t know there was a festival this weekend,” he said.
