It was a wet and windy Taste of the Mountains Saturday.
The 32nd street festival took over Main Street with a record number of vendors, both old and new, offering their goods, information, raffle tickets and more. Antique cars were on display in front of the library, food trucks lined the county administration circle and a new LoveWork sign designed by Molly Wilshere and Michael Bianco was on display in front of the Kemper Mansion featuring the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The festival was by all accounts, off to a great start. And then came the rain and the wind. Madison County Director of Economic Development and Tourism Tracey Gardner said the festival will be known as the one where “the river ran through it.” She said weather reports called for potential rain at perhaps 2 p.m. or 7 p.m., but never 10:30 a.m. Rain isn’t anything new for the tricenarian festival as it’s held rain or shine, but the wind was new.
“We’ve had rain before, we’ve had people’s products [flying] before, but we’ve never had tents flying before,” Gardner said.
She said vendors were given the choice to stay or go, but those who stayed ended up having a good day overall as folks kept coming out despite the weather. Magician Wes Iseli sat up shop in the tourism office, offering up close magic and the department of social services opened its doors to give people a place to wait out the rain. Free hugs continued in front of the visitor center and all three dogs from the Madison County Animal Shelter were adopted.
“We’ve had vendors talking about how friendly other vendors were,” Gardner said.
The county EMS staff treated a few cuts related to the flying tents. Any vendor wishing to sign up for next year’s festival is being given the $30 chamber member discount as well as an additional $10 discount if registration is completed by the end of September. Gardner has also been promoting all those who were in attendance via social media.
The 33rd Taste of the Mountains Street Festival will be held Saturday, Sept. 4 and is always the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. For more information, call the Madison Chamber of Commerce at (540) 948-4455, visit www.madisonva.com or email tourism@madison-va.com.
In nearby Orange, the Orange Street Festival was cancelled due to weather at approximately 11 a.m.
