Update, June 2022-- This news has now changed. All weekend events will be along First Street.
SNOHOMISH — Averill Field, at Third and Pine, will be the site of many of the Kla Ha Ya Days’ Festival’s events this year, although moving wasn’t the volunteer organizers’ first choice.
A city official told Kla Ha Ya Days’ management that after the annual Saturday parade rolls through, the festival couldn’t keep First Street closed for its later events, Kla Ha Ya Days President Andrew Urie said.
Even so, Urie said the fun will be all the same.
“I would like to believe as Kla Ha Ya Days is such a long-standing tradition of 100 years, people will follow us,” Urie said on the venue change. “As long as we get the word out there, people will come.”
It’s coincidentally a return — festivities have been at Averill Field in the past, as well as other parks.
The free summertime festival will have its music stage and its specialty contests, like pie-eating, at Averill Field this year. The stage has a lineup of performers all afternoon Saturday, July 16 and Sunday, July 17. A vendor market will be at the site, too.
A car show will be happening almost all day Sunday, July 17 for Kla Ha Ya Days.
Former city economic development manager Wendy Poischbeg approached the organizers near the end of 2021 about the change. “She offered Averill Field and the board and I scrambled” to adjust, Urie said.
The Carnegie lawn was a no-go. “If we didn’t have Averill Field, I don’t know where” the festivities would be held, Urie said.
Kla Ha Ya Days had closed First Street for the parade and then kept the road closed through to 7 p.m. for additional events.
Certain businesses along First Street felt the closure wasn’t merited as some, but not all, events wrap by around 4 p.m., as Urie understands it. But organizers did not want drivers coming through when there were people in the street.
