The gray clouds parted Sunday morning, revealing blue skies just in time for Santa Barbara’s 38th annual Kite Festival.

Bright-colored kites of all shapes and sizes filled the skies as families gathered for the yearly tradition.

The festival was postponed one week due to weather conditions, making the crowd even more eager in anticipation for the community event.

The annual festival that’s held at Santa Barbara City College’s beautiful Great Meadow hosted a wholesome afternoon filled with food, games and laughs.

The free event has been held at the college campus for the last 20 years after outgrowing its previous location, Shoreline Park.

Founder Rakesh Bahadur and director David Hefferman chose this year’s theme as “Love is a Breeze,” a theme to celebrate the laughter and love that brings families and friends together.

The festival hosted a variety of kite contests to challenge and engage the community including “Most Beautiful,” “Highest Flying,” “Largest & Smallest Kites,” “Youngest & Oldest Kite Flyers,” “Most Unique Or Unusual Kite,” “Funniest Kite,” “Most Unflyable Kite” and “Best of Fest.”

The younger crowd also enjoyed games and activities such as face painting and the Kite Tail Chase, in which different age groups run to grab the tail from a kite flown by Bahadur himself.

Kite master Bahadur first opened his kite shop on State Street in downtown Santa Barbara in 1980, and later established the city’s first kite festival in 1985.

Since then, he and the festival have become a staple in the kite community with the event growing in popularity every year.

“I do it for the kids,” Bahadur explained of wanting to spread the joy of kite-flying. “It’s fun, just a different kind of fun.”

Two frequent kite-flyers who gave their names as Nathan and Amy have attended the festival annually for the last 10 years.

Nathan’s tip for kite-flyers? Buy as many kites as you can.

“It’s not like (kites) are an investment,” Nathan said. “For the price of a decent golf club or tennis racket you can have a dozen kites.”

The festival hosted various local food vendors, like Elubia’s Kitchen Food Truck, Fresh Curry Chefs Food Truck and Tinkers Hotdogs. Stevens & Associates insurance agency also was on-site collecting donations for cancer treatments.