By all accounts we’ve heard, Lummis Day 2012 was a really good Festival--a day filled with wonderful music, dance, poetry, art and a strong sense of community.
It’s hard to estimate Lummis Day attendance. It’s a long day, the event is spread over a large area and people come and go. Nevertheless, based on our general sense of the capacity and the number of seats that filled, emptied, and then re-filled throughout the day, we’re guessing attendance of over 3,000 for the day at the two locations, probably a conservative estimate.
The Lummis Day organizing committee will have its re-cap meeting next Tuesday and we’d love to hear comments from our Northeast neighbors. What did you like most at the event? What did you like least? We can’t do much about the parking issue: our locations, which we love, come with parking limitations, but what else would you like us to consider?
Bear in mind that, with the exception of our excellent sound engineer (Xavier Estrada) and our very creative graphic designer (Deb Kim), all of us are a bunch of amateurs. Our committee consists of current and retired schoolteachers, plumbers, artists, historical society employees, a retired P.R. guy, etc. It’s an organization held together with scotch tape and paperclips. There are limitations on what we can do: we never have any money and we ask too much, much too much, of our many volunteers. Lummis Day pretty much embodies--and celebrates--the spirit of amateurism.
But if you have thoughts for what this event--Northeast L.A.’s very own holiday--could or should be, please consider bringing them to our committee meetings, which are always open to new ideas and new faces. We would love to see new people at our table. This event belongs to the community and the organizers are constantly seeking greater community involvement.
Thanks to everyone who came to the festival and the preceding events: our film night, our fundraiser, and our poetry workshops. Special thanks to our volunteers: we certainly couldn’t stage this event each year without a tremendous amount of volunteer labor. Thanks to all the neighborhood councils, to Jose Huizar’s CD 14 staff and Ed Reyes and Jose Gardea’s staff at CD 1. And thanks to the staffs at our two locations: Lummis Home and Heritage Square Museum.
The eighth annual Lummis Day Festival will take place on Sunday, June 2, 2013.
Come help us make it another great year!
