Celebrating all things Pacific Beach, BeachFest returns to the boardwalk Saturday, Oct. 6.
With the addition of the Travel Channel’s “Sandblasters” show, this year’s festival will be the biggest yet.
“People look at BeachFest now as a serious beach festival,” said Benjamin Nicholls, executive director for Discover Pacific Beach. “It’s really the only actual festival on the sand that of that scale. The OB Street Fair is on the street. This is on the sand.”
The all-day event starts with an 8K beach run at 7:30 a.m., followed by a volleyball tournament, windsurfing clinic and exhibition, kite flying, live music and dancing.
More than a dozen local restaurants, including Bareback Grill, Limonz, Hennesey’s, Olde City Grill, Filippi’s and Pacific Beach Shore Club, will offer items from their menu for only $2.
Students and volunteers from Pacific Beach’s elementary, middle and high schools will be selling snow cones, cotton candy and other treats to help raise funds for a variety of school programs.
“PB Elementary is bringing their dunk tank again,” Nicholls said. “Rumor has it a certain executive director will go in the dunk tank at some point.”
There will also be a variety of vendor booths near the main lifeguard station and an arts and crafts village along Garnet Avenue west of Mission Boulevard.
Proving the only thing better than watching an artist create a giant sand statue is watching someone blow it up, the “Sandblasters” sand sculpting competition is guaranteed to draw a large crowd to the shore between Grand and Thomas avenues.
The competition features eight two-person teams racing against the clock to finish their creation. But the television show added an extra obstacle: pyrotechnics.
Throughout the two-day competition, random sculptures will be blown up, forcing the team to start from scratch.
On Sunday, a panel of judges will select the winners, ending with all remaining sculptures being blown.
Nicholls said one of BeachFest’s biggest attractions, the Community Stage, featuring music and dancing from 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., has moved to the foot of Felspar Street.
“There’s going to be swing, salsa and tango lessons throughout the day,” Nicholls said. “Then at the end of the day, there’s going to be a dance competition and demonstration. In previous years, it’s just been a band playing with people coming up to dance. This year, we really want everyone to come up on the stage and dance the day away. After all the music and dancing, then the fireworks will go off and that will cap off the night. It was a lot of fun last year. We actually had to increase the size of the stage because everybody wanted to dance.”
He added, “Bring a blanket because the stage will be facing southward and you can spread out your blanket on the grass in front of Tower23.”
One popular item missing from BeachFest is the mermaid, who could be found perched atop a sand sculpture greeting visitors as they pass by on the boardwalk.
“She’s taking the year off,” Nicholls said. “Not because we didn’t want her back and not because she wasn’t popular. We didn’t want her near exploding sandcastles.”
For more information visit www.pacificbeach.org.