After a 20 year absence, the Festival of Nations returned to Chatham-Kent, and many felt like it never left.
According to Tracy Callaghan, co-chair of the event, the festival brought in some big crowds and exceeded her expectations. The event took place on June 29 - July 1 at Tecumseh Park in Chatham and showcased parts of different cultures from across the globe. On Sunday, Canadian rock-band Loverboy hit the stage, which Callaghan said was a huge success.
"It's hard to keep counts throughout the day because crowds came and went in streams but when we had the Loverboy concert portion of it, the security estimated between 8,000 and 10,000 people there at one time," she said.
Besides loverboy, Callaghan said there were several other highlights throughout the weekend including different cultural groups as well as local bands.
"The Japanese drummers that we had on Saturday afternoon, we received a lot of compliments and it was a very moving presentation that they did and the crowd was wowed by that," Callaghan said.
A large number of cultural food vendors were in attendance, making it a focal point of the weekend, according to Callaghan.
She said they only had five months to plan the event and the short notice led to some difficulties booking vendors. However, she believes the event did a great job highlighting Chatham-Kent's diversity.
"We had several representations of different cultures," explained Callaghan. "We did have one hamburger stand but we also had a Mexican [stand] we had the Carribean Association, we had British fish and chips, we had a Dutch vendor, a Jamaican vendor and we had The Chilled Cork there doing pizzas around the world and poutine. So, we think we had a fair representation for our first year."
During this year's event, attendees had the opportunity to donate money that will help the organizers prepare for Festival of Nations 2020. Callaghan said they raised around $4,000 in donations. They are also putting on a 50/50 draw to help offset some of the costs for next year. The draw will be held in September and tickets can be purchased at events throughout the summer, or by contacting organizers directly through the Festival of Nations Facebook page or website.
"The whole idea was to take the community money and put it back into this free community event and have another one," said Callaghan. "That was the goal, the goal was to bring a free community event and to bring back the Festival of Nations and have the community embrace and celebrate some of the diversity that we have."
Next year, Callaghan said they are planning to bring back the festival even bigger, and better.