Big crowd turns out for the 51st Summer Fest

FARMINGTON – It wasn’t even noon yet and downtown was already packed with families strolling among the many food and craft vendors, artists, entertainers and more.

Meetinghouse Park, too, was filled with young children and adults in tow, going from one game to another. Groups boarded a horse-drawn wagon driven by Kenric Charles and toured the downtown streets with historian extraordinaire Paul Mills providing the commentary.

With both blocks of Broadway closed to traffic, the Saturday Farmers’ Market took up residence on lower Broadway and the many activities, musical entertainment, food and craft vendors lined upper Broadway.

Among the many attractions was a new crowd favorite: Cube Wizard.

Wearing a tall conical hat, Cube Wizard, also known as Jasper Hodgkin, 9, of Farmington, is quite good at solving Rubik’s Cube puzzles. Sitting on a tall chair with a little table displaying several Rubik’s cubes and even a triangle version to solve, the Wizard wowed the crowds with his speed at solving  the puzzles.

He invited audience members to position the colored cubes any which way they wanted and then he went to work on them. After a short blur of changing cube faces, he held up the correct solutions to an astonished audience.

His mother, Mara Hodgkin, stood nearby smiling at her young puzzle wiz.

“He started playing with the puzzle a few months ago,” she said and added, “he loves showing people how to do it.” As an official festival street performer or busker, Cube Wizard’s tip basket was doing pretty well.

Noting her son’s growing coin collection, Mara Hodgkin said, “he’ll probably use the money to buy more puzzles.”

Farmington Selectman Andy Buckland looked around at the crowded streets downtown and said he was pleased with the turnout.  A volunteer at the festival, his job is to make sure the several musical performances all run smoothly.

“There’s a lot more going on at this year’s festival,” he said. “It’s a good amount of growth for a second year,” he said referring to the Farmington Downtown Association’s push beginning last year to improve on the annual Summer Fest event. In addition to having more activity and events, there’s a good variety of things for all ages, he said, “you’ve got everything here, from the blacksmiths to the Cube Wizard.”

The festival continues through the day and into the evening with a one mile and 5K road races sponsored by the Mt. Blue High School cross county teams at 5:30 and 6:15, respectively; the Gem Award presentation at 7 p.m.; a street dance from 7 to 8 p.m. with Sunday Project. All those activities will take place on Broadway. The festival concludes with a free concert in Meetinghouse Park from 8 to 9:30 p.m. with singer Keoni Thompson.