The 67th installment of Ocean Beach Kiwanis’ Kite Festival will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 9, the day before Mother’s Day, at Dusty Rhodes Park between Nimitz and Sunset Cliffs boulevards.
“It is the oldest kite festival in the country that is especially for children and was begun in 1948 by the Kiwanis Club of OB, and it’s been running continuously ever since,” said Melanie Nickel, who, along with husband Jim, helps promote the annual event.
“The kite festival is an amazing tradition that’s free fun for the whole family,” said OB Kiwanian John McCarthy about the homegrown event. “It’s easy to see why people who came as children are bringing their children — and even their grandchildren.”
One of the first kite fest participants, in fact, was Jim Nickel.
“My husband was in the very first kite festival as a very young child,” said Melanie Nickel. “Our grandkids are now attending.”
Nickel noted that children are taught the basics, how to make a kite and how to fly them, at the free festival.
“We have other things for them to do — games, food, a craft fair — at the festival,” said Melanie Nickel. “The last couple years we’ve added professional kite flyers to give instruction.”
Nickel said fun, kite-related activities on May 9 will include a kite ballet and kite games, including having a kite dropping candy, much like a pinata, as well as a catch-the-tail-on-the-kite game, which she added is “a lot harder than it seems.”
The event, which will also feature food trucks, is fun for the whole family and is now into its third generation of participants, added Nickel. She urged participants to park at Robb Field and take a free shuttle over to the event at Dusty Rhodes Park.
“There will be signs,” Nickel said.
The kite festival was begun by the late Marion Miller (aka “The Kite Lady”), who organized the festival for decades and always guaranteed it would be a nice day for the event, saying she had “a special understanding with the Man Upstairs.”
Co-sponsored by the Kiwanis Club and the Ocean Beach Recreation Center, this year’s kite fest will also feature San Diego’s finest gourmet food trucks. Participating children will be offered free hot dogs.
“It’s one of the biggest yearly events on our schedule, along with canine Howl-o-ween,” said OB Kiwanian McCarthy, noting the kite festival has become a club and community “tradition” for what is now going on seven decades.
“It’s just our way of giving back,” McCarthy said, noting the event showcases upwards of 1,000 kites and draws between 30 and 70 local artisans every year. The kite festival was moved from the Ocean Beach Recreation Center and Ocean Beach Elementary School to Dusty Rhodes Park to give it some breathing room and allow it to expand.
Glen Rothstein, regional director of the American Kiteflyers Association, has said his group is happy to help with the annual OB Kiwanis Kite Festival.
“There will be people from our group down there with handmade and custom kites. Some of them do this as a business and, for some, it’s a side business,” said Rothstein. “We’re going to be doing professional kite demonstrations, maneuvering kites in the sky, doing kite ballets and flying kites to music, similar to figure-skating competitions where entrants are judged on their technical ability and timing.”
Rothstein said there will also be kite contests for kids. “We’ll have kite-tail chases for kids with someone flying a maneuverable kite and kids running after it and grabbing its tail to win a prize,” he said.
The Kiwanis Club of Ocean Beach started the festival as a way to give children the opportunity to design, build and decorate their own kites.