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Published on 07/07/1999 All articles from this issue

Festival fun for 20 years

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By Wendy Marinaccio

Special to the Town Crier

Los Altos Arts & Wine organizers celebrate a birthday this weekend

A back parking lot

The first festival began in the three units of the South Parking Plaza from First Street to San Antonio Road, a small venue, which it quickly outgrew.

The festival moved in its fourth year to Main and State streets, where it has remained.

"Main and State was the obvious answer to location," said Jack Doscher, executive director of the Los Altos Village Association from its inception in the early 1960s until 1985. Nancie Allie, who has organized the artists and craftspeople at the festival for the past 20 years, said the festival was "a great event on the parking lot, but it's become a spectacular event on the main streets."

Doscher and Allie provided much of the push for starting the festival in 1980. The Village Association had been searching for sales promotion ideas to assist in its goal of promoting and representing business in downtown Los Altos. "People who never even knew where Los Altos was could come and see the event. It made the city more of a discovered jewel," Allie said. Doscher said the festival is "one of the greatest things that's ever happened to keep downtown as a viable retail center."

The festival layout is horseshoe-shaped, with artists and craftspeople on Main and State streets, food booths in the cross-streets, and music, entertainment, and kids' areas in the parking lots. "It's like a whole compact little city," Allie said.

For several years, the whole festival setup - booths and all - had to be taken down Saturday night and put back together Sunday morning. Doscher said an agreement was eventually made with the police to close off the streets for the night, so booths could be left up and people could still visit downtown restaurants after festival hours.

Trying to screen

The number of artists and craftspeople has increased from 150 to 400 over the past 20 years, while the participating wineries has hovered around six each year. Meanwhile, festival attendance has skyrocketed.

"I think it was in the early 1990s that was sort of a turning point, where the festival was recognized by the greater Bay Area," said longtime Village Association President Bob Hatch. "It's something that people put on their calendars."

In terms of the exhibitors and booths at the festival, "It's really a matter of trying to screen," according to Hatch, who also coordinates the wineries and beer. "We can only accommodate so many without making it difficult for everyone." He said he tries to include wineries that people normally wouldn't have a chance to visit.

Allie has to narrow down the 800 applications from artists and craftspeople to 400 exhibitors. "We try to get the top in every category," she said.

But the festival wasn't always this way. "It was a very small event at the beginning," said Allie, who has done several art and wine festivals around the Bay Area.

Allie said the festival has retained its village atmosphere because, "we limit the number of vendors and don't overpack any aspect of it ... it's more of a boutique show than a large festival that takes up eight or 10 city blocks."

The Village Association has also brought more of the work internally in recent years. "The people who have been involved for some time have learned what we need to do, so we put on more of the festival than in early years," Hatch said. The Village Association has taken on the layout and warehousing distribution, for example, instead of contracting out the work.

Adding food

"People say they come to our festival because of the food vendors that we pick," Hatch said.

The festival has come a long way in the food department since its early years. Allie recalled two women who used to sell food on the street. "They sold handmade sandwiches because we didn't have any food merchants at the parking lot," she said.

The town's service groups later provided food at the festival. But when Jane Reed took over as the first full-time executive director of the Village Association in 1989, she set out to expand the festival's food department.

"I like good food," she said. "So I was very careful. There are lots of food vendors out there to choose from." The Village Association sampled the food of prospective vendors. After learning what was available, members determined to provide a variety of foods, looking for quality foods from different nationalities. Reed said the festiva organizers were careful not to have more than two vendors of any kind of food.

"We began to see which (vendors) were popular and which ones we really liked working with," Reed said. One such vendor had the giro stand, with workers who were very responsive and fit into the community.

"It was fun for the community to taste the variety of foods," Reed said, noting Los Altos didn't have Indian or Italian restaurants in 1989.

"I do all my event planning with the idea that I want to enjoy it myself," Reed said, comparing planning the festival to preparing a party at one's home. "When you can do that, you can start to please 100,000 people."

Friends and sponsors

In 1990, the festival began getting outside sponsorship, which Reed described as "very modest."

"Local businesses have been friends and sponsors," she said.

Dennis Ronberg of Linden Tree Children's Books and Records was an early sponsor, and he continues to support the festival today. He went to Reed in 1991 with the idea for a children's area at the festival, which exists today as KIDZONE. "I suggested we have a stage on Third Street, in front of our store," Ronberg said.

"It wasn't until Ronberg got involved that we could see his vision," Reed said.

Ronberg knew how to find performers for the children's stage because of contacts he had made during Linden Tree's summer concerts.

Kathleen Byrne, current executive director of the Village Association, said she has increased sponsorship for the festival and put more emphasis on the KIDZONE area. "Kathleen has found a number of things to add (to KIDZONE) - booths and much more sponsorship," Ronberg said.

Reed, who continues to advise executive directors, said those who served after her "have been very interested in keeping the festival at a high-quality level, and they have done nothing but enhance it." She added, "I'm just delighted when I'm able to be a citizen walking around."

A unique experience

The Downtown Los Altos Arts & Wine Festival has come a long way in its 20-year history. It has expanded from around 25,000 visitors and 150 artists and craftspeople at the first festival, July 19 and 20, 1980, to today's extravaganza with expectations of 150,000 attendees and 400 artists and craftspeople.

Although consistency and building on past success has been a priority for festival organizers in the Los Altos Village Association, several aspects of the festival, from food to entertainment, have grown and changed over the past 20 years.

"It's probably the premier arts and wine festival in California," Doscher said. "I can't think of anything where they do a better job in a better location."

The Los Altos Arts & Wine festival is ranked in the top 75 festivals in the nation, according to festival organizers.

Byrne attributes the success of the festival to "the downtown environment, the tree-lined streets," she said. "This is the perfect place."

Doscher agreed. "Downtowns are totally unique and will never be replaced."

Byrne also praised the festival's volunteers - all Los Altos residents. "A lot of the same volunteers come back year after year - we're very fortunate," Byrne said. Hatch commended "the spirit of the volunteers who are truly involved."

The Los Altos community brings a unique element to the festival. Reed remembered seeing all the different people listening to music and enjoying the atmosphere. "That's the strength of Los Altos - we're such a great blend of people," she said.

"We wanted to reflect well on the backdrop," Reed said, "to really reflect the values of the community as well as the sense that this is a special place."

In the 1990s, Village Association organizers added chairs and tables with umbrellas and developed entertainment venues, so "people could be entertained by the music and food, the ambiance of watching people," Reed said.

This year's Los Altos Arts & Wine Festival is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, in downtown Los Altos. The festival hotline is 917-9799. For more detailed information about this year's activities, check out the Arts & Wine Festival Magazine included in this week's paper.