The largest outdoor arts and crafts festival in Canada comes to the shores of Kempenfelt Bay in Barrie this weekend.
More than 350 artists and 200,000 visitors are expected for the 45th annual Kempenfest and organizers are expecting big crowds.
“Every year it seems to get bigger and bigger we've spent a lot more on entertainment this year so we expect our evening show to draw a bigger crowd,” says Tom Aikins.
The thousands of visitors mean a lot of cars in downtown Barrie. One complaint over the years has been a lack of parking. Aikins says they've learned from the past, and feels getting to and from downtown will be a lot easier this year.
“We're dealing with parking challenges with the construction on lakeshore. So we have three off Shore Park and ride shuttle system serviced by five busses,” he says.
Those shuttles will run from the Allandale Rec Centre, the Barrie Curling Club and Bayfield Mall.
The organizers of Kempenfest have made some changes to the layout for art vendors. All major artisans will be in one section, while crafts people will be in another area called “the marketplace”.
The preparation for this year’s festival is right on schedule and during the next couple of days the stages for entertainers will go up along the waterfront.
There will be two stages with bands playing all weekend, and rock band The Martels will hit the stage on Monday and after 50 years they've decided that this will be their final performance.
Kempenfest runs Friday through Monday.
