By Dominic Abassi

Parksville BeachFest attendance tops 130K as Canadian sculptors claim people’s choice award

Aug 21, 2017 | 5:20 PM

PARKSVILLE — The premier summer event in Parksville is over and once again a stunning amount of people flocked to the community park to see works of art crafted from sand.

For the third consecutive year, the Parksville Beach Festival had more than 100,000 people stream through the gates to take in world class sand sculptures. Festival Society president Cheryl Dill said 2017’s official total was 130,149, just shy of last year’s record setting attendance numbers of more than 133,000.

“We’re not concerned about tourism being down on the island, that’s for certain. It was a very strong year,” Dill told NanaimoNewsNOW, adding excellent weather and the Canada 150 theme also contributed to strong interest.

Dill said the Monday after the festival is a “bittersweet” day, as a  piece of heavy machinery plows over the sand sculptures.

Things like Facebook and Twitter have been another reason for the event’s recent success, Dill said. Attendance cracked the 100,000 mark for the first time in 2015.

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“Social media has been such a positive way of getting the word out there and showing up-to-date pictures. I think that’s really helped in the last few years to increase attendance.”

Dill said it was very fitting the winners of this year’s people’s choice awards were Canadian, given the theme. Peter Vogelaar from Winlaw, B.C. took the solo award for his piece ‘The Last Spike.’ Guy-Olivier Deveau (Quebec) & Damon Langlois (Victoria) captured the doubles honour for ‘Little Iron Horse.’

Each person through the gate is asked to offer a donation to cover the costs of running Beach Fest. Dill said they are still adding up this year’s total and 25 per cent of all proceeds go back to the community, mostly directed at community groups represented by volunteer ambassadors at the event.

“Our society has been looking at saving money for a proper stage in the park to feature a lot of different things that other service clubs can benefit from,” Dill said.

— With files from Daryl Major

dom@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @domabassi