Village to welcome summer with Nautical Mile Fest

The air seems charged this week as Freeport prepared for the 33rd annual Nautical Mile Festival. Each year the event attracts thousands of visitors to Woodcleft Avenue on the first Saturday in June. It signals the start of summer season in the village, even though summer is officially still three weeks away.

“It’s going to be a great day for an opening,” Mayor Robert Kennedy said. “We already requested a purchase order for a sunny and not-so-humid day. I’m sure we’re going to have great weather.”

Freeport Chamber of Commerce members, Nautical Mile business owners and village department heads joined Kennedy to announce details of the festival earlier this week. “We’re looking forward to the millions of people that will visit us this summer,” the mayor said.

Throughout the day on Saturday, live bands will perform in many of the bars on the Mile, and DJs will release their curated playlists that people will dance to all day. There will be hot dogs, pizza, funnel cakes and ice cream offered by food trucks that will line the area, along with the offerings of the eateries on Woodcleft Avenue, from bars to high-end seafood restaurants.

Attendees can also spend part or all of the festival on charter boats or personal watercraft. cruising local canals.

For the first time in eight years, there will be no Blues Festival in Seabreeze Park, according to Victoria Dinielli, the festival organizer and the Freeport Recreation Center manager. “No Blues Festival,” Dinielli wrote in an email. “The organizer of the Blues Festival has decided not to return this year.”

Because of the last-minute pullout of the organizer, whom Dinielli did not identify, the village did not have time to plan or host anything else in the park, officials said. “We’re going to see what happens next year,” Kennedy said.

The Nautical Mile Festival will also feature funky artisan vendors, and will introduce the community to new businesses like Backyard Barbecue. And the event wouldn’t be complete without games, rides, vendors, and giveaways for children and families.

Woodcleft Avenue will shut down until 5:30 p.m. for the festival, which will extend south of Atlantic Avenue, between Miller and Guy Lombardo avenues, down to Woodcleft Avenue. Chamber officials and Kennedy will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony at noon at Front Street and Woodcleft Avenue to kick off the day’s events.

Amusement park rides will run until 8 p.m. in the municipal parking lot adjacent to the Operation SPLASH (Stop Polluting Littering and Save Harbors) building. Throughout the afternoon, a steel drum band will perform on the Esplanade on Woodcleft Avenue.

Traffic will be restricted on all streets south of Atlantic Avenue for the day. Freeport police will reopen Woodcleft Avenue to vehicles by 7 p.m.

The festival is free and open to the public. “I wish everyone a healthy and safe summer,” Kennedy said. “Join us.”