Rain couldn’t put damper on Bluffton Village Festival

The 39th annual Bluffton Village Festival attracted several thousand people despite a string of thunderstorms that plagued the Lowcountry on Saturday.

“I was pleasantly surprised that, despite the weather, we still had about 60 percent of the people that we usually have,” Lisa Carroll, marketing and communication for the Bluffton Village Festival, said.

The festival featured more than 200 food and craft vendors, some of which came from as far away as Florida.

In addition to the normal pie-eating and ugly dog contests, there was the inaugural donut eating contest.

“In honor of the fifth year of the pie eating contest, we thought it would be fun to add a donut eating contest,” Carroll said.

The donut contest participants had to try their best to eat a whole donut that was hanging from a string without using their hands.

Even though people came out for the Bluffton Village Festival, many were disappointed by the weather.

“The rain is a bummer. We need it. I just wish it wasn’t today,” Regina Sixta, of Bluffton, said as she huddled under an umbrella with her husband, Tom, and their two chocolate Labradors on Calhoun Street.

“This is the best festival that we’ve been to, despite the rain,” said Ellene Lucas, who lives full time in Cleveland, Ohio. “Even he is having fun, and he wanted to play golf,” she said while pointing to her husband, Bill.

This story was originally published May 13, 2017 at 9:37 PM with the headline "Rain couldn’t put damper on Bluffton Village Festival."