Up in the sky above the Great Meadow at Santa Barbara City College on Sunday were dozens of kites, as people of all ages gathered for the 40th annual Santa Barbara Kite Festival.
By one organizer’s estimate, more than 1,000 people attended.
“It’s like living in a picture postcard,” Santa Barbara native Irma Wilson said of the festival.
Wilson first attended the annual festival 20 years ago. Now, she tries to return every year to enjoy the sights.
“When it first started, there were huge kites,” Wilson said.
The festival was created by Kite Master Rakesh Bahadur and his family, who opened the first commercial kite store in America in the 1970s.
The festival has become a place where generations of families can bond over flying kites together, Wilson said.
“That’s how a lot of things start, people want to give a part of where they came from,” she said.
The festival had been rescheduled from April 12 due to rain. That was only the second time it had been rescheduled in the festival’s 40-year history, according to organizer David Hefferman.
This year’s theme, “You and Me,” was selected because it underlines the cooperation required to fly a kite together, Hefferman said.
Flying a kite usually requires two people, and getting a kite successfully into the air takes a bit of trial and error.
“I love the fact that people continue to try to fly a kite despite the winds or whatever their success or failure rate has been,” Hefferman said. “I do think it’s about you and me, let’s go try again, and that’s why we selected that theme.”
That theme was reflected throughout the day in children and families scattered around the field, gathering in lines for food, snowcones and contests.
“We’ve watched generations grow up here. I’ve seen children that I had seen at the festival 20 years ago. And they bring their own new families to the festival, and that’s been really enriching and super fun to watch,” Hefferman said.
He said the community has “just been so supportive and we have dedicated ourselves to keeping (the festival) alive and keeping it going and giving people an outlet.”
Kaylin Rivera, a UC Santa Barbara student who has volunteered at the past two festivals, said there were larger kites and a bigger turnout this year.
She said her favorite was a Snoopy kite.
“A lot of people are just having a good time,” Rivera said.