ROSENDALE FESTIVE RETURN
Vendors, visitors enjoy annual street festival not held last year as new water lines installed
Participants and visitors at the Rosendale Street Festival on Saturday were pleased by returning vendors, new bands, and fresh pavement for strolling along Main Street.
The event encompassing most of the businesses district drew the first few thousand people by early afternoon to listen some 50 bands on five stages. Another 39 bands are scheduled for Sunday from noon to 7 p.m.
Vendors along the half-mile street were pleased to have good weather along with an event that is expected to have about 30,000 visitors.
Some entrepreneurs, such as independent wine guide Kelly Wright, were bringing their businesses to the event for the first time after being familiar with the festival’s history of attracting an enthusiastic audience.
“I just started this a few months ago,” she said. “This is the third street festival that I’ve been at and is actually the perfect place because every body is walking around having a good time ... and if you are looking to have a wine event this is the type of people you want to reach.”
The festival took a one-year hiatus while new water lines were being laid along Main Street last summer. While organizers did use the time as merely a longer planning period, some devoted regular volunteers were grateful to take a breather.
“All the street festivals just sorted of blended together after a while,” festival board member Fre Atlast
said. “So it was nice to have a break but that is also what makes this one special.
“Everyone was happy to have it back, they were happy coming in, and it was all very smooth almost like we didn’t miss a beat,
which is important because it takes so many people to put this on and everyone is so dedicated to trying to make everything go well for the residents, the businesses and the people who come.”
Debra Capurso, of Staten
Island, was among the people who came specifically to Rosendale because the festival was making its return.
“We’ve been coming up to New Paltz a couple years and then we found Rosendale and heard about the street festival two years
ago but last year it was cancelled,” she said. “So this year we made a point to come here.”
Brianne Olsson, a town resident, was also making the festival part of a business plan with the Brooklyn Belle Italian Ice Cart.
“This was a ‘must do’ as a startup,” she said. “We’ve done a beer festival in Connecticut, a fireworks display on the Fourth of July, the O+ Festival, the Children’s Day parade, and this was something that has a really good energy to it.”