Considering that a Category 1 hurricane was a few hundred miles offshore… considering that Saturday’s forecast called for rain and cold and 30-knot gusts… considering that we got enough food for the best case scenario and enough umbrellas for the worst case...

I would still call the 2019 Laudholm Nature Crafts Festival, our third best-performing festival ever, a resounding success. It had a shot to be #1, but for the asterisk of Dorian. 

Sure, Saturday got off to a blustery start, but by the afternoon, it was "nothin' but blue skies / from now on."

Yes, we took in 22% less in admission than last year’s record-busting, perfect-weather show.  But that's because, according to our gate counters, a full thousand fewer people came here this past weekend. I wondered why we had so many lobster rolls and hot dogs left over! 

Well, there’s not much we can do about the weather. (Editor's note: there's still plenty we can do about the climate.) We did see the biggest Crafts Festival Sunday in our history, so we know what we could have been - had not a hurricane threatened to rain on our Saturday parade.

From jurying to marketing to parking to setup, from admissions to volunteer check-in to hospitality to the food tent, the raffle, membership and logistics – everything went like clockwork. What a fine-tuned machine the Crafts Festival is. It is a testament to the efforts of each volunteer, artist, and staff person involved.    

To the 180+ volunteers, to all the captains and their generals, to our 120+ artists, and to the hard-working and heavy-lifting staff:

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU all for all that you do.

There’s nothing we can’t handle when we all pull together.

More photos of the 2019 Crafts Festival are available here on Maine Magazine's Facebook page.

See you here next year for the 33rd annual Laudholm Nature Crafts Festival, "always the weekend after Labor Day."