Little River Blue Crab Festival cancelled for 2012

Eric Masson got the news in a letter dated Nov. 10 – the 31st annual Blue Crab Festival was cancelled.

“It was a big surprise,” said Masson, who, along with his wife, Kim, owns and operates The Brentwood Restaurant & Wine Bistro in Little River, where he is also executive chef. “I was shocked.”

The letter was from the festival’s chairman and its vendor chairman and said the decades old event would be off for 2012. But officials expect it to return the following year.

The Blue Crab Festival committee wrote that it “will address issues such as [the] number of vendors the festival can accommodate, selection, placement and set up of vendors/exhibitors, vendor parking, entertainment, transportation and security.”

These concerns were among those at the forefront because of surveys and comments received by vendors, exhibitors and guests, according to the letter sent by Allen E. Lee, festival chairman, and Hubert Bullard, vendor chairman. Lee said a decision could come within eight months.

“It was packed last year,” Masson said. “The traffic was backed up all the way to North Myrtle Beach. People kept driving around because they couldn’t find parking.”

Lee told The Sun News that the festival cannot continue in that way.

The committee plans to use next year to restyle the festival for the future.

“This wasn’t an easy decision,” Lee said. “We want what’s best for the community and the waterfront. We’re going to take the year to regroup.”

Masson and other Little River restaurant owners said the festival should recapture its local appeal and feel.

More than 30 years ago, the festival was birthed when a handful of good-hearted neighbors and dedicated artistic types came together.

“For the first three or four festivals, I furnished all the crabs, cooked them and gave them away for free,” Jimmy Lupton, one of the original organizers, told The Sun News in 2009. “Back then, the festival was three days instead of two. We were trying to promote it freely.”

Children bought blue crabs to race them, and there was no attendance charge. Lupton, who owned Depuration Clam House, and others donated money.

It was a family-oriented event accented by free crabs and the creative energy and talent of local artists.

Over the years, however, restaurant owners said that intimate local feel has been lost.

“With the amount of people coming and with the amount of vendors, you got a sense where it was getting out of control,” Masson said. “I think it was probably a tough decision to cancel it, but I think it is a wise to cancel it and get it back under control.”

Ken Ercole, owner of Little River Deli & Market and Patio’s, which is on the waterfront, said he “is not big on them cancelling it” and looks forward to the festival each year. Still, he said there is definitely room for improvement.

“They have too much repetition in the food,” Ercole said. “They put too many food vendors in the streets. It was a mess this year.”

The inundation of food vendors creates too much competition in too small of a space, he said.

“You pay $400 for a spot, and it is hard to make a living,” Ercole said.

He said the arts and crafts aspect of this year’s festival was sorely lacking, adding that he saw no evidence of arts and crafts at all.

“It’s become a junk show because the only thing you ever find there is junk,” Ercole said.

Masson, Ercole and Betsy Farnsley, owner of Key West Crazy Restaurant, a waterfront eatery, all said the number of out-of-town food vendors seems to keep growing every year – taking the focus off of local eats and the local flair of a homegrown festival.

Farnsley said the booths of out-of-state vendors selling frozen seafood would park right in front of the area’s waterfront restaurants that sell fresh, local seafood.

“That’s insulting,” she said. “Why would you do that? I understand they [festival organizers] get a lot of money for the booth, but you hurt the flavor of the festival. They should definitely look into that.”

Farnsley said she doesn’t like the fact next year’s festival has been cancelled.

“From an economic standpoint, the festival means a lot to us,” she said. “It is a lot of money being made, and it is such a tradition.”

She said she would have preferred for the Blue Crab Festival committee to call local business owners, community members and other concerned parties to discuss how they could make it a go next year.

Personally, she said she doesn’t mind hitting the pavement to help draw more participation from area artists and businesses.

She has a variety of ideas she thinks will help improve the festival including adding an educational aspect that shares some of the history of Little River at different intervals of the day, start an annual fishing contest and a drawing contest for the children.

“Get us to work with you so we can make it a win-win for everybody,” she said. “We don’t’ want it cancelled. If we need to get out and beat the bushes, we will.”

Farnsley said waterfront business owners can’t imagine the festival not taking place next year.

“We need to get together and do our own thing on the waterfront,” she said. “We are not going to sit back and be victims.”

Back in 2003, there was a fuss about the community’s biggest annual event when Little River Chamber of Commerce officials wanted to move the festival from the Little River waterfront to La Belle Amie Vineyard, which is less than a mile from North Myrtle Beach and about a mile from Little River.

The Waterfront Business Association wasn’t enthused and discussed doing its own thing.

It looked as though it would be competing Blue Crab Festivals – one held at the vineyard and the other at the waterfront.

In the end, however, the festival stayed put.

And with staying at the waterfront, the festival has helped Linda and Dick Deegan’s Pirates’ Treasure House store.

The festival has brought people to the waterfront who came back later to shop at the Deegans’ store, Linda Deegan said.

“The day itself did not bring in business, but people came back, which was very beneficial,” she said. “That’s what we’ll miss. It’s so very disheartening because with the way the economy is, it’s tough.”

Deegan said she thinks there were overbooked vendors for the festival.

“It was too much. I think it got crazy,” she said.

But in spite of that and how demanding and stressful it is to prepare the couple’s store for the festival, Deegan said she thinks it would be a good idea to reinvent the event.

“The benefit outweighs the work,” she said.