Island Park Festival set for this weekend
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ISLAND PARK — If you’re looking for something fun to do this weekend, there’s a party going on in Island Park.
Organizers are prepping for the Island Park Festival this Friday and Saturday, September 2 and 3. The festival free to the public brings together dozens of vendors, good food and raffle prizes in a celebration of the big weekend of the summer.
Island Park Festival will be the perfect way to say “Goodbye” to summer 2022.
“We’re excited,” festival organizer Jean Phillips told EastIdahoNews.com. “For Labor Day, we’re gearing up. We’re close to a hundred vendors on this (festival) and people are coming from all over.”
This weekend’s event is the second Island Park Festival, with the first taking place over Pioneer Day weekend. Phillips said the seed of Island Park Festival was planted by a conversation she had with a local restaurant owner Connie Funkhouser.
“Last Labor Day, I was at Connie’s Restaraunt,” Phillips said. “There were three vendors there and there were tons of people who couldn’t get in to see what they were selling. We all had to stand in line to get into them.”
Phillips had a conversation with decided to put together an event that would that would bring in more vendors to serve a sizable crowd. Over the next several months, she used her thirty years of experience planning events to get vendors to come out. She planned the first festival to take place on Pioneer Day weekend.
“I did it on Pioneer Weekend because they said that and Labor Day were the busiest weekends,” said Phillips. “I anticipated about fifteen vendors but we ended up with close to ninety vendors. People came from all over and it was so cool!”
Phillips said vendors at this weekend’s festival will be offering a wide range of arts, crafts and food.
“It’s like a big crafts fair,” she said. “You can come and display your wares and everything is for sale. We have food vendors, and this weekend we have a caricature artist. We’ve added music this time, too.”
There will also be a raffle with prizes including free stays at Black Swan Inn and Sawtelle Mountain Resort.
Phillips said that Island Park is a really great environment for an event like Island Park Festival and that the festival will make for a fun part of an enjoyable Labor Day weekend.
“Island Park is a cool place,” she said. “It’s in the mountains, and it’s just a fun place to be. There’s fishing and camping and ATVs and everything you could imagine there. Just come for a fun time and it’s free and you can just walk around to all the booths. People come back two or three times because they’ve had so much fun there.”
The Labor Day Weekend Island Park Festival is this Friday and Saturday, September 2 and 3 where Quakie Lane meets Highway 20 near Sawtelle Lodge in Island Park. Admission is free and hours are 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. on Friday and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday. Visit the Island Park Festival website or Facebook page for more information.
