Old East Village Street Festival buzzed with people, Saturday. Over 75 vendors moved to the street with many artists of all varieties showing off their talents.
Managing Editor and Sales for Colours of London Magazine, Craig Hancock was helping out at the Cat’s Bark table, when it wasn’t busy he would take a break by playing a piano set out at a nearby store. Gaining attention by passerby’s, he quickly became a hit. “For me, when I play, it’s the feeling and the power of music, it comes through. And emotionally, I’m in it.”
Hancock says the street festival is awesome, “It’s so great to see everyone coming out. We’ve had such a great response. All the business’ are opening their doors and places you’ve never even heard of before. It’s fantastic and it’s good to see the community getting involved with it too.”
Food trucks joined the street party offering plenty of different styled foods for everyone’s taste buds by Rectory Street.
Children eagerly waited for balloon made figures and a little dance with a clown.
The smell of food in the air and the sound of laughter filled the street, with many saying there should be more events, like the street festival, held in Old East Village.
A member of the London’s Potter’s guild at the London Clay Art Centre, Teresa Ainsworth says the street festival helps with business, “We’ve had a lot of people in today that have never been here, and knew nothing about our potter’s guild, and the fact that we have classes or even that we exist. So, that’s [the street festival] will always be a benefit for us.”
On the Move Organics and Root Cellar owner, Jeff Pastorius says the festival has been fantastic for business, “There’s so many people who have come down and said, ‘we had no idea, we’ve never been down to this part of the city, and we had no idea all of these stores existed. That all of these services were here, we had no idea.’ So, this has been a huge success. Just huge.” He adds, “We should do this every week.”
Dundas Street was shut down for the festival from Adelaide Street North to Rectory Street.
