The 2023 Lincoln City Fall Kite Festival was held September 23-24 this year. Lincoln City hosts two kite festivals each year, a summer festival in late June or July and a fall festival in late September or October. If you missed the 2023 events, tentative dates for the 2024 events are June 22-23 for the summer festival and September 21-22 for the fall festival. Mark your calendars because these are great events, fun for the whole family.
Kite festivals are always weather dependent, and if you attended this year’s fall kite festival in Lincoln City, you know that the weather this year wasn’t the best. But when the sun shines and the winds cooperate, the Lincoln City Fall Kite Festival is a glorious event and great fun for all. That was certainly the case in 2018. The following is an update of a post from October 2018.
2018 Lincoln City Fall Kite Festival
It had rained all day Friday, but the forecast looked better for Saturday, so my wife and I decided to head to the coast for the Lincoln City Fall Kite Festival on Saturday morning. The rain had stopped by then, and the sun broke through the clouds by the time we got to McMinnville. Luck was with us.
When we got to the coast, the sky was almost cloudless. And we got the last available parking spot at the D River Wayside. Luck really was with us. There was a brisk, but not cold, breeze on the beach – perfect kite flying weather and a pretty near perfect day for just hanging out on the beach.
The festival featured a lot of very big kites, including a 30 foot diameter “soccer ball,” and quite a few performance kite fliers demonstrating their talents. One of the highlights for me was a flier named Spence Watson flying two quad strings kites. Normally it takes two hands to fly a single quad string. Flying one one-handed is a feat in itself, but he was flying one right-handed and one left-handed, and controlling each one perfectly. Pretty amazing.
The other highlight was the final performance – 13 quad string kites being flow at the same time (one by an eleven year old boy) in a pretty well coordinated routine that I think was improvised on the spot. That was also pretty amazing.
Watching the kite flyers was as entertaining as watching the kites. It’s really a very physical dance that they’re doing. Their movements are perfectly coordinated with the music, but everyone’s moves are a little bit different. If you watch long enough you begin to see the different styles of the flyers. It’s really quite interesting.
There’s plenty to do at the festival for the whole family. Kids can take part in kite making classes, get their faces painted, meet a “real live” mermaid, learn about ocean conservation, fly their own kites, and, of course, just play in the sand.
I lived in Lincoln city for most of the 1980s, so we took a mid-day break and walked the five blocks to look at the house I lived in for part of that time. It’s been extensively remodeled and added on to, so it’s nothing like it was when I lived there.
Pier 101, a seafood restaurant, is only half a block from there, so we stopped in for lunch. It hasn’t changed a bit in the last 30 years, making it about 40 years past due for a makeover. But has its own kind of nostalgic charm, and the food was good, maybe not the best in town, but still very edible.
Lincoln City hosts two kite festivals every year, a summer festival in June or July and a fall festival in September or October. There are numerous other kite fests up and down the Oregon and Washington coasts, including the Southern Oregon Kite Festival in Brookings in July, and the Washington State International Kite Festival in Long Beach and the Rockaway Beach Kite and Art Festival, both in August.
If you’re interested in learning more about kites and kite flying, The Kite Company is a good source for kites, supplies, and instructions on the Oregon Coast, with both an online store and a brick and mortar store in Newport. Other good online sources are Into the Wind , Prism Kites , Kitty Hawk Kites, and Pro Kites USA .
The Lincoln City Fall Kite Festival was good fun for all. The weather was perfect. And Mother Nature provided a gorgeous sunset to top off the day. Can’t ask for much more.
Originally posted by Alan K. Lee October 15, 2018. Updated and re-posted October 4, 2023.
All photos © Alan K. Lee
The OCF is a remnant of the 1960s counterculture, for sure, but it is anything but stuck in the 60s. Over its 54-year history the Oregon Country Fair has not only survived but grown and thrived. It’s hard to describe just how big this thing has become. The schedule of events for the 2018 fair listed 120 performances on the first day, spread over 19 stages. There are dozens of musical acts, dancers, comedy acts, vaudeville, circus acts, and more than a dozen groups of performers that wander the miles of paths of the fairgrounds. And that’s just the entertainment.
There are also more than 300 artisans selling hand crafted goods – pottery, jewelry, leatherworks, glassworks, furniture and other woodworks, sculptures, paintings, photography, clothing, and you name it. There are also dozens of workshops, classes, and “gatherings,” and almost ninety food booths. There is a childcare center, three first aid stations, a cell phone charging station, drinking water bottle filling stations, showers, and five ATMs.
