A nor’easter’s high winds and rain wrecked tents and cut into sales at the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties last weekend, sending some vendors home early as organizers kept the event open.

Much of the craft vendor row at the Cantine Field Complex sat empty on the second day of the annual two-day festival on Sept. 27, after wind gusts of up to 32 mph and scattered rain the day before. Ten of the 69 craft vendors who set up on the first day returned for the second, organizers said.

The weather forecast prompted some to question if organizers would cancel or postpone this year’s festival to a designated rain date. The Kiwanis Club of Saugerties, which organizes the annual festival, announced that the festival would carry on as planned with no rain date.

“Unless the county declares a state of emergency, we don’t shut down,” said Richard Kappler, chairman of the Kiwanis Club Garlic Festival planning committee.

The festival draws about 30,000 people in a typical year and brings in tens of thousands of dollars in ticket sales, Kappler said. He wouldn’t provide specific dollar amounts.

Attendance fell at least 15% this year, Kappler estimated, though official numbers aren’t yet available. Organizers sold about 8,500 tickets online in advance, and not every ticket holder may have come. The club may refund some people who couldn’t attend because of the weather, although nothing has been decided yet, organizers said.

About a third of the 3,000 parking spaces set aside for the event went unused, said Fred Costello, the Saugerties town supervisor.

The Garlic Festival is the Kiwanis Club’s only annual fundraiser, and its proceeds pay for community programs in Saugerties, including food pantries, the Boys and Girls Club, student scholarships, and the Saugerties Animal Shelter. The club has given about $2.5 million from the festival since it began in 1989, Kappler said.

Planning the festival is a “big undertaking” that starts a year in advance, Kappler said, and the committee has never considered a rain date because of the event’s size.

“It was a really bad call on their part,” said Donna Stackhouse of Donna Lynn Creations, a craft vendor who sells hand-painted glassware.

Stackhouse, who has sold at the festival for 18 years, said she lost more than $1,000 this year after her tent “twisted like a pretzel” in strong winds at about 2 p.m. Sept. 26.

She had paid $400 for the steel-frame tent, $345 for a double space, and about $300 for new weatherproofing supplies, including a rain tarp and six 40-pound concrete blocks to anchor the tent. She also paid two people to help her and took two days off from her full-time job, she said.

“There was so much extra stuff we had to buy, and you know, not just me, all the vendors,” Stackhouse said.

One craft vendor left 30 minutes after the gates opened. Karen VanEtten, who sells fairy-themed sculptures and accessories through her business, A Little Enchantment, packed up by 10:30 a.m. Sept. 26. She had paid $250 for a single space.

Morning winds folded her tables and broke the back two legs of her tent, even though she’d weighed it down with 5-gallon water jugs, leg weights, sandbags, and a 20-pound dumbbell on each leg. She didn’t lose any merchandise, she said.

“The wind just kept pushing my tent backwards. With all the weight I had on it, it was moving me a foot or two back,” VanEtten said.

Organizers, volunteers, and vendors helped one another hold down tents and take down displays to prevent more damage or injuries, she said.

Stackhouse said she asked organizers before the festival whether attending was optional because of the nor’easter. She was told she couldn’t be guaranteed a spot next year if she stayed home, she said.

This year was an exception, said Jeanne Sutton, the Kiwanis Club member who manages the craft vendors. Vendor contracts require them to attend rain or shine or risk losing their spot to another vendor, Sutton said, though no one will be penalized for missing either day this year. Organizers also emailed vendors advising them to weigh down their tents, she said.

“It was just a bad situation this year. I mean, it was a freak thing that happened,” Sutton said.

Food and farm vendors along the festival’s main stretch fared better than craft row. Of the 150 food vendors, 140 returned for the second day.

“It’s the nature of the beast,” said Mark Guido, owner of Guido’s Frozen Desserts, which makes the festival’s garlic ice cream. “It’s not the first time I’ve gotten wet. It won’t be the last.”

Guido has sold at the Garlic Festival for 33 years and works other outdoor festivals that go on rain or shine. Expecting smaller crowds, he made less ice cream than usual and sold about 60% of what he’d normally sell, he said; that was enough to cover overhead with a little left over.

“The forecast might have scared some people away,” he said.

“This is our biggest event of the year. We wouldn’t miss it for a hurricane,” said Raema Frost of Rockerbox Spice Company.

Frost, in her 12th year at the festival, sells garlic “dust,” a finely ground garlic seasoning, and jars of pickled garlic, along with the handmade garlic crowns she wears and sells each year. After struggling to keep her tent in place on Sept. 26, she bolted each leg to the asphalt the next day and added cement weights.

“Yesterday was rough,” she said. “But people come out no matter what. Garlic people are tough.”

Kappler said nothing would change in planning for next year.

“There was never a question that the festival was going to close,” he said.

Next year’s festival is scheduled for Oct. 2 and 3. The club hasn’t set a rain date.

Original photography by Michael Sofronski for The Overlook.

Isabella Schoonover is a staff reporter for The Overlook covering Woodstock, Saugerties, Hurley, and surrounding Ulster County communities. Send correspondence to isabella@theoverlooknews.com.