Community Corner
2013 Wine Festival is Back, This Time on Saturday
Last year's successful inaugural event means more vendors this year.
Hoping to build on last year’s successful inaugural Councilman Dan Bucci said the festival will return this year, but this time on a Saturday.
The July 13 event will again be held at Veterans Memorial Park. The city is expecting to again receive a one-day alcohol permit for the park, where alcohol is not normally permitted.
“The plans are very similar to what we did last year,” Bucci said.
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The inaugural event, held on a Friday evening last summer, drew more than 1,500 visitors. sampled wine from five Lorain County wineries at the event, which included art, music and food from area restaurants.
“We want more food vendors from Avon Lake and are hoping for more (wine) pourers for shorter lines,” Bucci said. “For a first time event it was an unqualified success. A lot of people put in a lot of hard work to make things go right, but we weren’t sure of the response we were going to get.
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“It couldn’t have gone any better.”
Bucci, who has helped organize the festival through the non-profit Avon Lake Waterfront Group said organizers will “take lessons learned last year and put them to use for (this) year.”
Visitors can expect a few more vendors.
“We’re trying to get some more Lorain County wineries involved and some more local food vendors,” Bucci said. Last year's vendors included John Christ Winery and Klingshirn Winery, both of Avon Lake.
And they hope to be better prepared with more than one person staffed at each wine station.
“And more glasses,” Bucci said. “Last year we almost ran out of glasses.”
Bucci is also hoping to draw a bigger crowd, including those from out of town, so they can be exposed to Avon Lake vendors. He is also hoping moving the event from a Friday to a Saturday will allow more attendees who couldn’t make the 4 p.m. start time last year.
Funds from the festival helped support several other lakefront festivals last year, including the Heritage Festival and All American Festival.
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