By Eric Bourque
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
With the 2010 Par-en-Bas Acadian festival in the books, organizers will meet to review this year’s event and begin turning their attention to 2011.
The festival’s organizing committee was scheduled to meet Aug. 11.
“We will start jotting down ideas for what to do next year (and go over) what worked well, what didn’t work well (with this year’s festival), things like that,” said festival coordinator Krista Spinney.
The third Festival acadien international de Par-en-Bas was held over a 15-day period that began July 10 and ended July 24.
Asked about the 2010 festival, Spinney said, “We were very happy. We had more people this year than we had last year.”
The festival again featured various activities throughout the Par-en-Bas region.
Spinney offered examples of some of the activities that seemed popular with people.
“The lectures in Wedgeport, we saw quite a few people there,” she said. “Pubnico had excellent nights too…Amirault’s Hill had a turkey supper (where attendance was up) and Ste-Anne-du-Ruisseau had a mass and then they had a dinner, where the Maddens played, and they too had a really good turnout.”
The festival officially began with an opening-night concert in West Pubnico and concluded two weeks later with en evening of entertainment in Wedgeport.
“It was a success all-in-all,” Spinney said of the 2010 festival. “We were pleased.”
People attending festival activities were invited to fill out surveys and, by doing so, they became eligible for prizes.
The winners included Kay Muise of Surette’s Island, who won the first prize of a weekend for two Ye Olde Argyler Lodge; Lillian Thibodeau of East Pubnico, who won the second prize of one night’s accommodation for two, supper and a gif certificate from the Red Cap; and Gordon Amiro of Lower West Pubnico, who won a framed photo taken by Peter Boudreau.
Looking ahead to next year’s Par-en-Bas festival, Spinney says organizers would like to hear from people who are interested in getting involved in the festival.
