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GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS  |  2020 – 2021 29 PHOTO: ANTIOCHIANA, ANTIOCH COLLEGE Cooking on Xenia Avenue during a Street Fair. PHOTO: ANTIOCHIANA, ANTIOCH COLLEGE Street Fair when it was Sidewalk Sale, a more informal event in which stores pulled their merchandise on the sidewalk while villagers sold their items on blankets in the street. No date was provided on this photo. enue, she added. Of course, as much as Street Fair is a Yellow Springs tradition, complaining about Street Fair — the crowds, the noise, the traffic, the incon - venience — is also endemic to the village. “Locals definitely have some mixed feelings about Street Fair,” Wintrow acknowledged. Wintrow said the Chamber wouldn’t continue Street Fair if it didn’t have a net positive impact. “We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t feel like it was enhanc- ing the community,” she said. The festival regularly features over 200 arts, crafts and food vendors, two music stages with more than a dozen acts, a beer garden and street performers (who do not pay for performance space). Responsible for pulling all of that together is former Antioch College student Alexandra Scott, the Chamber’s events coordinator since 2015 and now interim director. The festival takes months of planning, Scott said, including everything from lining up vendors and musical acts to recruiting the 50 or more volunteers that typically help staff the event to securing liquor licenses and renting port-o-johns. By Street Fair policy, only vendors that sell hand- crafted items may participate, although Yellow Springs businesses and returning vendors are exempt. Scott vets vendors for quality and compliance with Street Fair guidelines. Most vendors hail from Ohio, though some come from as far away as California and Florida. At any given Street Fair, about half the vendors are new and half are returning. Each Street Fair morning, Scott is up at 4:30 a.m. chalk - ing booth numbers on Xenia Avenue and handling other last-minute details. She’ll spend hours riding her golf cart “attending to whatever people need from me” until the crowds get too thick for the cart and she has to con- tinue her work on foot. “By the end of the day my legs and feet are killing me, but I’m having so much fun,” she said. And that, said Wintrow, is the point of the day. “If nothing else, go to the music fest. Sit and enjoy the music, have a couple of beers. It’s a great Yellow Springs day.” www.WanderAndWonderYS.com NOW IN KINGS YARD! 220XeniaAve.Shop3 937-769-5015 SUSTAINABLE & LOCAL OUTDOOR LIFESTYLE CLOTHING & GEAR. Stocking brands that care about the environment and keep it healthy, clean and safe for generations to come!