Cars, music and more at annual Airway Heights Festival
AIRWAY HEIGHTS – A beer garden, a bouncy house for the kids, a whiz-bang car show, and an award-winning band are expected to draw more than 8,000 people to the annual Airway Heights Festival on Friday and Saturday, event coordinators say.
Too Slim and the Tail Draggers, a regionally renowned blues band, will set up their instruments around 8 p.m. Friday. The nearby beer garden will offer brews for $4 each.
“People can see the band. They can see the car show from the area. They can sit and enjoy a beer while they watch the other things going on,” said Lori Wood, who organizes the beer garden and kid activities every year.
The thundering giants of the car show will roll in Saturday morning around 9 a.m., with car owners driving from as far as Canada and Oregon to put their prized vehicles on display.
“Listening to them pull in is an experience – the rumbling of the cars, watching them line up one by one as they get in their rows,” said Lisa Pederson, one of the main coordinators of the festival. More than 600 cars were featured last year. “You see the owners get out and lovingly wipe off their cars. Some people even wipe them off with diapers.”
The festival, which sprawls over the grass of Sunset Park for two days, has free admission.
Children are not going to be bored here, Wood said. She’s worked out a chalk art contest, the bouncy house and a slew of crafts. Kids can make some sweet art while Mom and Dad wander through the car show or listen to the bands.
Wood and Pederson are still looking for volunteers to help set up and tear down children’s activities.
And as far as eats go, the Baja Babes is among the festival booths, offering something a bit unusal but wildly popular: shrimp tacos.
“They were a big hit the last time they were here. They’ve had a line around the corner the whole time during the festival,” Pederson said.