VENTURA : Crowds Check Out Arts, Crafts and Music at 17th Holiday Festival

Clutching two hand-painted wooden lawn ornaments and waiting for a seat inside a packed downtown diner, 36-year-old Stephanie Ross joined thousands of others Sunday who turned out for Ventura’s 17th annual Holiday Street Festival.

The Simi Valley resident says she attended the festival only at the insistence of friends interested in checking out the scores of arts, crafts and clothing booths on display along eight blocks of Main Street open to just pedestrian traffic.

“Yeah, I have to admit the spirit is slowly sinking into me,” Ross said with a grin.

“I have to admit that prior to this, it was more like ‘Bah, Humbug!’ than anything else for me.”

Ross and her friends joined those who turned out under sunny skies to peruse the booths of some 400 vendors on Main Street from Ventura Avenue to Fir Street.

At every street corner, the rhythms of bands playing music ranging from American jazz to Andean folk songs could be heard.

The rich aroma of booths offering everything from hamburgers to Thai food to homemade tamales wafted about.

“We’ve noticed that people seem to be really upbeat and in a good mood this year,” said Kathy Bowman, the festival’s assistant director.

“Judging by the amount of calls we received inquiring about the event, I’d say the crowd was looking forward to coming out.”

Bowman added that organizers this year reduced the number of vendor booths by about 100 to allow more room for downtown merchants.

“There’s just more elbow room out there,” Bowman said, adding that the festival serves as an important annual fund-raising activity for local nonprofit groups.

Ventura police said that aside from some heavy traffic caused by the festival and an event at the Ventura County Fairgrounds, the street festival was peaceful and no arrests were made.

And, as the season is largely meant for kids, the festival offered visits with Santa Claus and a free kids’ show offered by Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company at Mission Park.

For acoustic guitarist Richard LaForge, who was selling tapes and compact discs of his self-produced Christmas recordings, the festival was a chance to meet fans of acoustic guitar and to further support his struggling music career.

“The crowd here in Ventura has been great,” LaForge, 27, said as customers crowded around his booth to hear his renditions of several traditional Christmas tunes.

“I think people like to hear this music because it is simple and clean and not heavily orchestrated.”

Elsewhere at the festival site, scores of student and civic groups were selling all kinds of foods, confections and drinks. The Ventura chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, for example, dished out bowls of fresh Caesar salad at $3 a plate.

“I’d guess that we’ve sold about 200 salads so far,” said Larry Manson, a chapter spokesman. “We were thinking that the salads would offer the crowd an alternative to some of the fried foods you can find around here. They’ve been a hit.”