Kite Festival Celebrates All Things Kites

Kite Festival Celebrates All Things Kites

PHOTO BY GREG SCHECTER

The annual celebration in Berkeley is a family-friendly kite-oriented event geared toward newbies and pros.

Look up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane … it’s the Berkeley Kite Festival, the annual celebration of all wind-powered art as dozens of colorful kites in the shapes of dragons, sharks, octopoids, condors, and more fill the sky above Cesar Chavez Park.

A grand day out for the whole family, the Kite Festival, of course, opens with a high-flying kite competition, but there’s plenty of fun to be had for kite newbies as well — kite-building workshops and lessons for beginners will also be held throughout the event. Enjoy live music by Taiko drummers, and kids can investigate the petting zoo and bounce house in the festival’s kid zone.

But for most kids, the highlight of the day is always the candy drop, when a sack of candy is dropped from a kite, scattering like an air-borne piñata, and it’s a mad dash to see who can scoop up the most booty. The sky’s the limit on fun. The festival offers free shuttle service with pick-up at Golden Gate Fields. Saturday and Sunday, July 27-28,

10 a.m.-6 p.m., free admission, marina parking is $15, César E. Chávez Park, 11 Spinnaker Way, Berkeley, HighlineKites.com

Faces of the East Bay