This year’s Innisfail Weekend of Wheels is revving up to be bigger and better than before. And Jodi Desjardins is hoping to capitalize on the crowds.
“The men are there for hours,” she said of the show that runs until 4 p.m. “The women need something to do.”
She’s organizing the Innisfail Street Market, to run Saturday 10 until 3 from 52 Street and 49th Avenue and down past the Coffee Cottage by about a block.
She said it’s a separate event from the Innisfail Street Festival seen in previous years, and will showcase vendors from all over the province who have different and unique items for sale.
“There will be the usual baking, crafts and homemade items,” she said. “…but the stuff will be unique ... It won’t be the stuff you usually see around here,” she said of vendors from as far away as Lloydminster and Edmonton coming down for the event.
One vendor makes riding gear for dogs on motorcycles, she said as an example. She also used the example of a woman who takes photographs of children in a similar style to Anne Geddes, who takes stylized photos of young children dressed as fairies, flowers or small animals.
Desjardins found a lot of the vendors online as home-based businesses and invited them to attend. She said it gives the businesses a chance to showcase their unique brands and gives patrons something new to see and remember.
“There’s the car show and the triathlon going on at the same time. Having something else will drive people in from the outside. That’s what we need,” she said of drawing people into Innisfail to see something they can’t find every day.
“The car show already has a draw. This is the last one of the year – the last hurrah, or so it should be,” she said.
She hopes if the event is successful it’s something people will remember because of its uniqueness, and that it will draw even more people in the following years.
“It’s little ideas becoming something bigger.”
The market will run until 3 and will showcase Didsbury musician Kelly Tschitter until 2. Local youth bands will finish off the hour.
People can also head over to the Century Theatre at 1 o’clock both Saturday and Sunday. Car-themed family movies will play both days. Admission is a dollar and all proceeds will go towards the downtown revitalization committee.
Thru the Windshield magazine/Just Ride Productions will offer a drive-in movie at Henday Centre Saturday night. Volunteers from the local Terry Fox Run will be selling popcorn, chocolate bars and licorice at Saturday’s drive-in showing of “American Graffiti.” All the money raised from those sales will go back to the Terry Fox Foundation.
Gates for the drive-in open at 8p.m. There is a $10 entrance fee per car and 100 per cent of the gate will go towards the beautification of Innisfail’s downtown core.
