Children’s Festival to celebrate 20th anniversary

The Clark County Children’s Festival has become one of the perennial favorites, drawing children from across the valley to enjoy live performances, carnival rides and much more.

The 20th annual festival is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 S. McLeod Drive.

Event organizer Joseph House, a recreation and cultural specialist at the center, said festival organizers aren’t planning to do anything radically different to mark two decades. Instead, they’re set to bring back many old favorites.

“We’ve got Roos-N-More coming back down with their animals,” House said. “They’re always a big hit. The rock wall and the train ride will be back, and we’ll still have face painting and balloon artists.”

Also set to return are two local historical re-enactment groups. Black Talon plans to engage in mock battles with the children and give them some of the history of medieval weaponry, and the Kingdom of Albion is slated to instruct children in the gentler arts of rope braiding and butter churning. Members of the Kingdom of Albion also plan to help kids get their inner “Brave” or Katniss Everdeen on with archery instruction.

The center’s resident performance troupes — the Winchester Star Catchers, the Encore Show Choir and the Tiny Tots Glee Club — are scheduled to perform on the outdoor stage.

Children also are invited to contribute work to a permanent art piece at the center.

For eight years professional artists have worked with kids to glaze tiles that are assembled into murals displayed at the center. Artists Sierra Slentz and Su Limbert are scheduled to return to the tile workshop this year.

“We laid it out during spring break,” Limbert said. “We hand-built the tiles so the finished piece will be part our work and part an interaction with what the kids do.”

Limbert and Slentz teach art in the Clark County School District. Limbert teaches at Cram Middle School and Slentz at Las Vegas Academy. The pair were recently announced as upcoming artists in residence at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

“We’ll be there from June 14 to July 19 this summer,” Limbert said. “We’ve worked craft fairs and such together for a while, but last year’s tile project for the Children’s Festival was our first collaboration.”

This year’s piece is to be twice as large as previous year’s projects, filling 14 feet near the rear entrance of the center. It is also expected to be the most prominently displayed mural of the series, as all the previous tile projects are mounted low and near the back corner garden. This year’s project is set to be installed at eye level.

“We wanted to highlight a lot of the activities that happen at the Winchester, so that’s what we did in this piece,” Limbert said. “The main image is a girl blowing bubbles with a bubble wand, but then there are a bunch of smaller figures dancing, playing, making music and a lot of the other things that happen here.”

Admission and many of the activities at the festival are free, but there are fees for carnival rides, concessions and some activities.

For more information, visit clarkcountynv.gov or call 702-455-7340.

Contact Sunrise/Whitney View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 702-380-4532.