Flower Festival Friday Features Fanciful Family Fun at Ryon Memorial Park in Lompoc
Jarrod Zinn
LOMPOC, Calif. – Today was the Lompoc Valley Flower Festival’s second of its four days of activities.
It offers two more days with features of fanciful family fun.
For more than seven decades, the Lompoc Valley Flower Festival has been adorning Ryon Memorial Park.
Thursday and Friday had free admission for a limited time, Saturday and Sunday it will cost money to get in.
“We’re proud to say that we’re very high in pre-sales this year,” says Inga McCullough, Lompoc Valley Festival Association’s chairperson.
“So we know that the numbers are going to get very large over the weekend. And this morning, we did have a very long line starting at 8:00.”
Food vendor’s are up and running, and everyday there are performances and carnival rides.
“We have a new entertainment chairman, so he’s bringing a large variety of music from different genres,” says McCullough. “And we’ll also have our local performers, so the dancers will be out there. There’ll be a lot of those local people on the stage as well, as well as our beautiful princesses.”
Courtesy of Helm and Sons’ Amusements, some of the carnival rides are larger and more extravagant than years past, a welcome change for some attendees.
“It’s not like when I was a kid, because everything is exciting and you want to play games and stuff,” says Lompoc local Tamara Lyerla. “But I enjoy the just walking around and getting fresh air and trying new different foods. I was on my way to get myself sketched by the sketch artist here. I haven’t had that done since I was a late teenager.”
While there are still some locals who remember this event being free for the community, now the parking and admission charges go directly toward sustaining the event.
“This community needs that,” says Lyerla. “We need more support for things that made Lompoc great, like our flower fields. I wish they could bring those back, you know.”
Organizers say the event takes two weeks to set up and to tear down afterward, and the Lompoc Valley Festival Association is always looking for new volunteers.
Tomorrow’s annual parade starts at 10:00 at the Aldi’s parking lot at Pine & H. Streets, and will wrap around to H & Ocean.
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