Whyte Avenue Art Walk concludes after deluge hiccups

The Whyte Avenue Art Walk concluded Sunday after a weekend of unpredictable weather.

The Whyte Avenue Art Walk concluded Sunday after a weekend of unpredictable weather. Edmonton saw a severe thunderstorm Friday evening with streets and public facilities flooding across the city. Luckily, most artists had packed up by then.

But Saturday’s unexpected afternoon storm managed to do some damage. “We had a beautiful day up until that point,” said producer Jill Roszell. “We all hunkered down.

We did the best we could. We had patrons in tents holding them down from the wind. “Some of our longtime artists were saying that this was one of the worst storms they’ve had during an Art Walk, like ever in over 20 years.”

Roszell said a few tents were lost in Saturday’s deluge. Unfortunately, some of the artists had their work damaged. Luckily for Kyungah Song, her tent was strong enough to sustain the high winds and heavy rain.

“It was chaos. We saw a tent fly away,” said Song. Roszell said despite the storm, the show must go on.

“It has been a bit of a scramble behind the scenes ... but you would never know it today,” said Roszell. More than 470 artists took part in the 30th edition of the Whyte Avenue Art Walk. With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Curtis Goodrum