08/20/2011 - Flying Colors Kite Festival

Flying Colors Kite Festival (MKS)

Sat, August 20, 11am – 4pm

Valley View Middle School, 8900 Portland Avenue South, Bloomington, MN (map)

This is the Minnesota Kite Society's BIG summer festival! This year's event will take place at the combined ball fields of Valley View Middle School and Valley View Elementary School. The ball fields are located on 90th Street between Portland Avenue S. and 3rd Avenue S. in Bloomington. Activities to include: - Kids' kite making workshop - Kids' kite flying competitions - Sport kite demonstrations - Flying of giant display kites - Fun Fly for all ages Event is FREE and open to the public!

The Flying Colors Kite Festival had a great crowd this year. We started the day with people arriving right at 11am ready to fly. Estimates were that we had up to 500 or more people.

The winds were light, so the large show kites didn't get off the ground. That just means we're going to have perfect wind next year. ;-)

There was enough wind to get smaller kites and some stunt kites up to put on a show throughout the day. Dave Herzig's kid kite making workshop was once again the big hit with the crowd.

Tom Cross displayed one of his kite art sculptures. Mark Brandt, Larry Day and Dean Murray displayed banners and pin wheels to add to the ground show. Jim Bateman's collection of flags were also on display.

Thanks to...

• Ed Grys and Brad Klages for traveling from Wisconsin to help with the kid contests and MKS information tent.

• Mark Brandt and Larry Day for traveling from Clear Lake, IA with your ground displays and large kites.

• Mr. Kite, Craig Christensen for providing the music and announcements and for flying your great kites.

• Ken Wilkowski, John Kaulbars and Dean Murray for organizing, planning and promoting.

• Dave Herzig for putting on another excellent kite making workshop.

• Randall Trapp, Steve Barker, Tom Cross for helping with event setup and take down.

• Michael and Gloria Wilkowski for taking pictures for us.

• Ron Pegg for putting on stunt kite demonstrations.

• To all the volunteers that helped with kite making, provided beverages and helped with the event whose name I missed.

Here is a link to our Press release and poster.

Here are pictures from the festival. More pics are coming... Click here for help using the picture viewer

The following pictures were taken by Michael Wilkowski.