For two hours people kept steadily coming through the doors of Affinity Place on Saturday night, as the Savour the Southeast food and drinks festival was gaining momentum.
Intriguing food aromas tickled the nose and colourful light glares of drink bottles teased the eye, as people were making their way around the stage with DJ Baby Daddy and later the Johnny McCuaig Band filling the air with the music.
Some vendors were local, while others brought their product from all across Saskatchewan so the Estevan community could sample the entire palette of flavours.
A big crowd of food and drink connoisseurs came to enjoy what the festival had to offer this year, making the event another big success. However, the attendance numbers were slightly down in comparison to past events.
“The Savour was well attended. Attendance seemed to be down from previous years, but not entirely surprising with the economy as it is. But we are still happy with the attendance and the cabaret exceeded our expectations,” said Savour the Southeast co-chair Amanda Spenst.
The cabaret performance by Aces Wild took place at the Power Dodge Curling Centre this year and was really well attended.
“Everybody seemed to be having a really great time… Being the first year having it in two separate locations, we weren’t really sure how that would go. Whether people would just go home right after savour, or whether they would actually head over to the curling rink. And it seemed like the majority of the people did head over to the cabaret next door, and we did have more people (coming just) for the cabaret also,” said Spenst.
It was really busy at the cabaret, and Spenst said that looking forward they will consider keeping the savour and the cabaret parts of the night separate, instead of making everybody leave the Affinity for some time prior to proceeding with the entertainment as they used to do it before.
“It turned out to be better set up that way… because we didn’t need to clear out the floor and then let everybody back in. That was always tricky in the past anyway, we feel that it work out better this way, and it transitioned really smoothly, so we were happy with that,” said Spenst.
The event wouldn’t have come to reality without the community, sponsors and volunteers, and Spenst was very grateful for everybody’s support.
There were some gaps left in volunteer schedule, but when the night started the situation changed.
“After the first sets of volunteers we had quite a few who said they had so much fun they asked to stay and help longer,” said Spenst.
Proceeds from the event will go to the Estevan Family Resource Centre. Spenst also mentioned that depending on the final numbers they may forward part of the money raised to other family-oriented non-profit organizations in the community.
The final numbers on attendance and on funds raised weren’t available at the press time.
