PORT ANGELES — The Dungeness Crab Festival will returns to Port Angeles for its 24th year this weekend with a new name, a revived commitment to civic engagement and a promise to deliver the kind of food and experience individuals have grown to expect.
The free waterfront event Friday through Sunday will feature three days of fresh local seafood, live music, cooking demonstrations, street vendors and family activities.
This is the first year it will be without the involvement of founder Scott Nagel, who transferred the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival to a group of local business owners in the spring. The group reorganized the event as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, dropped “seafood” from its name and began making subtle changes — from redesigning the website to renewing existing partnerships and developing new ones.
Dungeness Crab Festival Executive Director Rose Thompson said the organization’s board of directors have tried to retain what people love about the event while making some tweaks they hope will improve it.
“We want to keep on all the things people love about the festival and deliver it a little bit better,” Thompson said.
People are still encouraged to purchase crab dinners before the festival to lock in the price. But this year organizers are trying out a new system that asks people to choose the time they will pick up their dinners. The purpose is to ease the long lines that have been one of the biggest complaints about the festival.
The timed entry will only occur on Saturday — the festival’s busiest day — and if it’s success, it likely will be rolled out across all three days of the festival in 2025, Thompson said.
Advance-purchase dinners can be bought online through today. A full dinner of a 2-pound crab, corn and coleslaw is $45 for a full dinner; $30 for a half-dinner of a 1-pound crab, corn and coleslaw; and $35 for a two-pound cooked and cleaned crab for curbside pickup.
Crab dinners at the event will be priced at market rate, which has been pretty pricey lately, Thompson said.
“We hope good things happen that will bring the price down by the time the festival starts,” she said.
About 15,000 pounds of crab were sold in 2023, and organizers hope to meet that mark this year. To purchase a crab dinner ahead of the festival, go to tinyurl.com/5e6aa3r5. CrabFest will honor dinners purchased before the new organizers took over the festival.
While the price of a crab dinner has ticked up — $5 more each for dinner and half-dinner — there will be many free events to take advantage of this year. CrabFest organizers partnered with Feiro Marine Life Center on the City Pier to eliminate entrance fees during the festival. The Elwha Klallam Museum at the Carnegie, 205 S. Lincoln St., will be free and open to the public as well. The U.S. Coast Guard Air-Sea Rescue will make an appearance off City Pier at 1 p.m. Saturday.
CrabFest for the first time will partner with Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts, which will produce free, live musical entertainment on the main stage next to the Crab Central Tent at the City Pier and at Gateway Transit Center. Among the performers will be local favorites like Black Diamond Junction and the Randall Wolf Band, as well as performances by the Lower Elwha Klallam Song Group, Navy Band Northwest and the Peninsula Men’s Gospel Singers.
As in previous years, CrabFest will be spread out over the Port Angeles City Pier, the Port Angeles Harbor parking lot, Gateway Plaza and the 15,000-square-foot Crab Central tent located on the Red Lion Hotel Port Angeles Harbor parking lot.
The size of the all-ages beer garden on the City Pier is significantly larger than it has been in previous years, Thompson said. That will allow people to take their children with them as they roam around to shop at vendor tents and listen to music.
Lincoln Street will be closed to all traffic and Railroad Avenue will be open to local traffic only.
With CrabFest taking over Gateway Transit Center, the Port Angeles Farmers Market will relocate to Pebble Beach Park on Saturday, and Clallam Transit System will reroute its buses all three days of the festival.
The festival map can be found at www.crabfestival.org/festival-map.
The Dungeness Crab Festival
Friday through Sunday
• Grab-a-Crab Derby from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at City Pier. Entry fee of $5 for 10 minutes of crabbing in a tank — no license or equipment needed. You can’t keep any crabs you catch, but you’ll receive a coupon to purchase whole crab at a discount.
• Crab Fest 5K, 11 a.m. Saturday on the Waterfront Trail starting at City Pier. Fundraiser for the Peninsula College women’s basketball team. Entry fee is $35 with participants receiving a coffee mug and winners in each of four categories awarded two free crab dinners. To register online, go to tinyurl.com/yhnz6ca4. In-person registration starts at 9:30 a.m. on race day. Information can be found at www.crabfestival.org/5k-fun-run.
• Chowder Cookoff benefiting the Port Angeles Food Bank, from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday at Gateway Transit Center. Chowder must be prepared in a commercial kitchen. For those without access to a commercial kitchen, the facility at the Port Angeles School District administration building, 905 W. Ninth St., is available from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Entry fee is $20. Judge’s Choice winner will receive $200, and People’s Choice winner will receive a $100 gift certificate from Kokopelli Grill. Information and entry forms are at www.crabfestival.org/chowder-cookoff.
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.
