Sales down, spirits still up at broiling Westmoreland Arts & Heritage Festival

By JAMES ENGEL TribLive

Oppressive heat and sudden thunderstorms kept many away from this year’s Westmoreland Arts & Heritage Festival, but vendors said they made the best of it at the muggy four-day fair.

The festival — in its 53rd annual edition — ran from Thursday to Sunday at Twin Lakes Park just east of Greensburg. Temperatures rarely dropped out of the 90s for the event’s duration.

That made for a “challenging” experience for Taylor Niezgoda, whose Mt. Pleasant business, Hooks and Waves Crochet, sells crochet animals for children.

It was Niezgoda’s second year at the festival, but she said this time around saw significantly lower sales, which she attributes to the weather.

Still, without the hustle and bustle of the normally crammed fair, Niezgoda said she had more time to meet customers and interact with other vendors.

“It’s left a lot of room for good conversations with people,” she said. And importantly, she still came out of the festival in the black.

Kimberlee Everhard, a watercolor artist from Akron, Ohio, couldn’t say the same.

“I took a risk, but it didn’t necessarily pan out,” Everhard said.

Between lodging costs and festival fees, she said her first time at the show was simply not profitable. She said it’s unlikely she’ll return next year.

Everhard complimented the festival’s organization, but she said she spent much of the four-day event with a cold rag on her forehead.

Randy Tracy was more blunt.

“Nobody came. Attendance was very low, and I don’t blame them,” he said.

Though hundreds meandered through the festival Sunday afternoon, Tracy said it was the slimmest turnout he’d seen in his more than two decades selling homemade dog collars at the event.

Loyal repeat customers helped him stay profitable this year, but between the heat and rival events for the celebration of America’s semiquincentennial, he’s coming out with slimmer margins.

Ed Check, a Jefferson Hills-based jeweler who has attended the festival for nearly a decade, also attributed his relative success to loyal patrons.

Though he was down about 35% compared with last year’s festival, Check said the heat didn’t spoil the event.

“I can’t complain; I did well,” Check said.

Both a vendor and an organizer, Lynn Johnston serves as the board chair for the committee that puts together the annual festival, sponsored this year by the Tribune- Review.

Despite the heat — and the admittedly lower attendance — Johnston said this year was a success.

Her business, Greensburg- based Papa Bear’s Chainsaw Carving, went through much of its stock of custom carvings.

And a Saturday afternoon thunderstorm ended with no harm done, she said.

Denise Murrin-Coburn and her husband, Jeff Coburn, said they did about as well as they did at last year’s festival selling their homemade glass garden ornaments.

Sunday, the two said, was the busiest day of the festival, though Coburn said a steady stream of people also flowed through their lakefront turf on Independence Day.

“It’s a fun place if you can stand what Mother Nature throws at you,” Coburn said.

But they said they knew their success was not universal.

Festivalgoers apparently didn’t have much appetite for Jeff Byrd’s steaming, melted chocolate desserts.

He said he was down 80% compared with last year. Having traveled from suburban Atlanta, Byrd was well into the red.

It’s unlikely he’ll make another go of it next year, he said.

Jody Zavora also took a hit, selling about half as many garden art poles as last year, but the Monessen-based artist said she’s sure to return in 2027.

“We’ll definitely be back next year. It’s a great festival,” she said.