EVERETT — A revival of Salty Sea Days, a community event that hasn’t happened in more than 15 years, is starting from scratch.
On July 22 and 23, rosters of live bands, a 40-foot-long obstacle course, a Nerf practice range, a skateboard ramps exhibition and more will be bringing two days of fun for the community.
Scuttlebutt Brewing will have a beer garden, and food trucks will assemble.
And all of it will be packed into two blocks along Colby Avenue between Hewitt and Everett avenues.
The event’s history goes back to the 1970s as a festival with a huge parade. It ran until 2004 when politics unraveled things and a group of concerned City Council members yanked a significant portion of funding from it, from newspaper clippings.
A rag-tag team bringing the event back is hoping to grow it over time.
“I started this job in 2017 and early on people started asking me ‘when are you going to bring back Salty Sea Days?’,” said Madison Vasquez, the communications manager of the Downtown Everett Association who is overseeing putting it together.
Two main volunteers — Scott Wraspir of 3PG printing shop and Sharon Gomez-Pascual of Indigo Hotel — are doing the integral work for setting up the event together with a small group of four others.
Pop’s Skate Shop off of Rucker Avenue plans to bring back the mobile skate park people may have seen at the Fisherman’s Village Music Festival.
Tom Harrison from MyMyToyStore on Hewitt will bring his Nerf target range game.
Saturday’s concert lineup is being arranged together with the Everett Music Initiative.
Having a carnival and parade are seen as out of reach for 2022’s event, but Vasquez said she’s looking forward to test-running that obstacle course. It’s a kid-friendly course, too.
A city grant the event won is underwriting a lot of the expenses and the city tourism department is helping immensely, Vasquez said. The event name and logos were owned by a nonprofit association, but never trademarked, according to what city attorneys found, Vasquez said.
Will the event’s historical mascot Captain Salty be back? Not quite. There’s an idea to have a drag queen show Friday night and to crown a “Ms. Salty.”
Captain Salty is associated closely with the parade, so since this year’s event has no parade the group decided to hold off trotting him out.
Vasquez was “pretty confident” the drag queen show will go on as of what she could say Friday, June 24.
Salty Sea Days will be Friday, July 22 from 4 to 10 p.m. and Saturday, July 23 from noon to 10 p.m.
