The Allentown Art Festival is famous for steamy hot days as people walk and shop and eat along its route on Delaware Avenue and some side streets. It was steamy at times on Sunday, but it was mostly wet.The numbers were much smaller on Sunday, but despite the heavy rains, many customers were still hanging around and checking out vendors, bars and restaurants around the festival. Jim's Tacos owner James Staub says things started well and went downhill.
"The rain hurt us today. They had an excellent crowd earlier. A lot of people stuck it out for about an hour. But, consistent rain meant no one would take two hours of rain," he said.
Despite the wet weather, customers like Siobhan O'Connor found some good purchases.
"A painting that depicts the buffalo on top of the First Niagara Center, I thought that was really cool. I also got this really cool three-dimensional glass work. It was so striking," she said.
Allentown Village Society President Rita Lipman says Saturday went well, but Sunday was a struggle for many.
"Saturday was a great day. The weather was fantastic. But, funny enough, I spoke to some of the artists today (Sunday) during the rain. Some of them did very well because maybe people were coming into the booths to get out of the rain. I don't know what the reason was but they did very well even in the rain," Lipman said.
Lipman says the AVS did something new for this year's festival, hooking up its website so a visitor could find a particular exhibit and go to that website to purchase something.
