PORT ANGELES — It’s been an avalanche every morning for weeks.
Dancers, players, singers, jugglers. Drummers, strummers and people who don’t fit into any musical category.
They’ve been sending applications to what will be a different kind of Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts this Memorial Day weekend, with fewer — but costlier — artists and a change in the venues.
Dan Maguire, the new executive director of the 18-year-old festival, is taking it downtown SEmD “to get a more community feel,” as he says.
Maguire envisions a compact block of events concentrated around downtown, four days — May 27 through 30 — of music that lasts late into the nights.
But “the sad news,” Maguire added, “is we’re not going to use the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center and the Port Angeles Community Playhouse,” two venues on East Lauridsen Boulevard.
Including those stages in past festivals made it so fans had to either drive or take a shuttle bus away from the festival locus around the Vern Burton Community Center, 308 E. Fourth St., the City Council chamber stage next door and the Elks Naval Lodge downtown at 131 E. First St.
Juan de Fuca will add a new stage this year at Studio Bob, the gallery upstairs at 118 ½ E. Front St.
The space will be filled with music for “the younger crowd,” as in teenagers and people in their 20s and 30s, Maguire said.
At the same time, numerous other downtown shops and cafes will be part of Young at Art, a nonjuried children’s art show with, he predicts, about 1,000 entries.
As for the bands and other performing groups who make Juan de Fuca a musical feast, they will be on festival stages during the day and evening — and then Maguire plans to book them into downtown night spots such as Bar N9ne, Bella Italia and the Kokopelli Grill.
Fans with festival wristbands will get in free, while others can pay a small cover charge.
This downtown focus was something Maguire said both he and his board of directors sought.
“We wanted to tighten it up more,” he said. “To me, what is really powerful about festivals is the community vibe.”
The fine arts center and playhouse “are wonderful stages. The artists liked them,” said board president Martha Hastings.
“But going to them meant leaving the festival . . . They were just too far away.”
Studio Bob, the Elks, Vern Burton and the chamber stage are within walking distance of one another, which benefits fans as well as the volunteers who make the festival run, Hastings said.
“It will be nice for some of the folks coming from Victoria,” she added. “Hopefully we’ll get more folks” from across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
“I am disappointed,” said Jake Seniuk, director of the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center.
The center, which marks its 25th anniversary this year, has been part of Juan de Fuca since the first festival.
When asked whether he’ll hold his own events, Seniuk said he didn’t want to do anything that would compete with Juan de Fuca.
The annual student art show, ArtPaths: Portfolio 2011, will be on display, however, and, of course, he hopes people will come up and see it.
Meantime, Maguire is busy booking bands.
Fifteen acts — about a third of the full slate — are already shown on the festival website, www.JFFA.org.
Firm in the lineup are the gypsy jazz group Hot Club Sandwich, bluegrassy world music band the Paperboys, San Francisco folk-rock outfit Blame Sally, flamenco-Balkan-gypsy troupe Tambura Rasa, rocking bluegrass band Poor Man’s Whiskey, Frazey Ford of the Be Good Tanyas and Kazum, purveyors of “acro-balance” and dance that “pushes the boundaries of perceived limitations.”
Ten others, including newcomers and returning bands such as Tiller’s Folly, are also listed — while Maguire works on bringing 25 more.
Still, 40 acts is fewer than the usual 60 to 70, the new director said, adding that this is also part of the new face of the festival.
Maguire is looking to bring higher-caliber performers to town, and they cost more.
His budget is only about $30,000, and it’s tough, he said, to construct a festival with that.
Adding to the stress is the waiting — waiting for performers to sign contracts. Some won’t do so until they have other dates lined up in the area.
And once the dozens of acts are signed, Maguire must assemble the puzzle of who to put where when during the weekend.
The Juan de Fuca Festival, founded 18 years ago by Karen Hanan and run by Anna Manildi from 2001 through last year, has built an excellent reputation, Maguire added.
“I’m stunned by the amount of applications we’re getting,” from performers.
And the festival’s new direction has both Maguire and Hastings filled with anticipation.
“We’re excited for the changes,” Hastings said.
“Dan wants to improve the corridor,” between Vern Burton and downtown, “with more stuff to do and things to look at . . . We’re looking to see how the community will greet that.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.