PORT ANGELES — Dan Maguire has three words for how he feels about last weekend’s event.
“I’m blown away,” he said Thursday, four days after running his first Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts.
As the new executive director of the cavalcade of concerts, Maguire milled around with a sun-loving, eating, drinking, dancing and cheering crowd all Memorial Day weekend.
When the conga line came snaking through the Vern Burton Community Center during the Paperboys’ closing set Sunday night, Maguire watched and smiled.
When his daughter, Julia Maguire, stepped onto the Chamber Stage to fill in for a performer who hadn’t shown up, he slipped into a seat and listened, rapt.
And when bluesman David Jacobs-Strain, bluegrass foursome Abby Mae & the Homeschool Boys and comedian Toby Hargrave had the Chamber Stage jammed to its gills, Maguire figured he’d have to look at a bigger venue.
As he crossed the grassy area in front of Vern Burton, as he walked downtown to the venues at Elks Naval Lodge and to Studio Bob, people kept stopping him, telling him how much fun they were having, he said.
Sales up 10 percent
There was some dissonance, though. Ticket sales, at about 2,000 day passes and 300 full-festival passes, were up a mere 10 percent over last year.
To Maguire, the crowd sizes didn’t match that modest increase.
Apparently, droves came to enjoy the free street fair and performances adjacent to the center — creating the community atmosphere Maguire had hoped for.
“People were coming up to me nonstop” saying this was a great festival, he said.
And though the director received a few emailed protests of Hargrave’s comedy and the acrobalance troupe Kazüm’s performance — too suggestive, they complained — Maguire said the feedback he heard was overwhelmingly exultant.
From Friday through Monday, the Juan de Fuca kept on keeping on: Americana from Blame Sally and Poor Man’s Whiskey to Russian music from Trio Voronezh, the Paperboys’ Latin-Irish-reggae mix to Africanesque jazz from the Kora Band and finally, Monday evening, humorous folk swing from Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks.
“I’ve been coming for years, and Monday was always dead,” Maguire said of the festival’s final day — but “it wasn’t dead this Monday.”
Even the morning set by singer Sarah Shea — who said she’d expected “five people” to show up — drew a large, adoring crowd.
‘Town came alive’
“The good news is our town came alive,” added Stokes, whose art and concert space at 118½ E. Front St. was the site for 10 events, including two tango workshops, two tango dances and six concerts.
At four other downtown venues — Wine on the Waterfront, Bella Italia, the R Bar and Bar N9ne — Maguire had conducted an experiment called “Juan de Fuca After Hours.”
Starting at about 10 p.m., festival acts came to the nightclubs to do second sets — and the festival-goers followed.
“Of the many new innovations this year, [the after-hours gigs] were a good idea,” said Torrey Jakubcin of Port Angeles, a Juan de Fuca Festival-goer for four years.
Jakubcin, 18, went twice to Bella Italia, for Jacobs-Strain on the first night of the festival and Hargrave the third night.
Those performances were “not overcrowded but nicely full,” Jakubcin said.
Chamber Stage
He added, however, that the Chamber Stage, where the Port Angeles City Council chambers are converted into an intimate festival venue, is showing strain.
This is due, Jakubcin believes, to the fact that the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, long part of Juan de Fuca, was taken off the festival map this year.
“Eliminating it was not such a good thing. The Chamber Stage is the only small venue now,” he said, referring to the festival stages and not to the after-hours venues.
“I’m thinking the Chamber Stage is getting ridiculously overcrowded,” Maguire added.
“As we continue to raise the quality [of festival acts], it’s going to get more so.
“If you get a seat, it’s great,” but he saw plenty of people standing in the back or sitting on the floor.
It would be “radical” to remove the Chamber Stage from the site lineup, Maguire acknowledged.
But the director hasn’t been shy about making big changes.
Festival changes
The Juan de Fuca After Hours lineup and the inclusion of Studio Bob were two of 2011’s significant additions, and Maguire said both were hits, judging from the healthy turnouts.
“I love that room,” he said of Studio Bob, which also serves as an art display space during Port Angeles’ Second Weekend art shows.
Stokes, for his part, said he learned that he and Maguire have to look more carefully at the bands they bring up to the studio.
Some are plain too loud, Stokes said, adding that his building was constructed back in the 1920s, “before everything was amplified.”
Last Monday, when Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks had delivered their encore and when the dancers had finally stood still, Maguire stepped onto the Vern Burton stage to give thanks for a few things.
“Great weather; great volunteers,” he began.
Then he thanked the whole throng for being part of the festival — from the people in the front row seats to the local artists who did performance paintings at the back of the hall.
The canvases — created by Jeff Tocher, Johnny Rickenbacher, Doug Parent and David Haight — will go back on display at Studio Bob’s Second Weekend show Saturday from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The show will be a last public look-back while Maguire and the festival board meet to talk about next year.
So when it was all over Monday night, was the director relieved?
“I probably could have kept going,” Maguire said. “I feel really fortunate to have this job.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.