The annual Fiesta de Artes turns into a street fair next weekend when the traditional event moves downtown. This means North Santa Cruz Avenue will be closed to vehicles Aug. 12-13.

This year’s move comes as the town seeks ways to justify the closure of the South Santa Cruz Avenue on ramp to southbound Highway 17. The Fiesta has been held at the Los Gatos Civic Center for years, but the new location allows the event to expand to 200 arts and crafts booths, and 30 business-oriented sponsors.

The North Santa Cruz closure is from 5 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 12, to 8 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 13, from Bachman Avenue to Main Street.

South Santa Cruz Avenue will be open to local traffic from Main Street to the Wood Road roundabout during the festival.

Fiesta de Artes is sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Los Gatos. Admission is free.

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“I view this as a year of opportunity,” Fiesta co-chairman Terry Martin said. “I’m extremely excited, but cautious because of the unknowns. From what I can tell, this is the first time in decades that a festival has been held downtown. So, it’s scary because we’re flying blind.”

Vendors and sponsors are also excited to see if the move downtown is successful, organizers said.

“We were able to add about 50 more artists because there’s more space available,” Martin said.

Here’s how it will work: The arts, crafts and vendor booths will be set up in street parking spaces along North Santa Cruz, leaving the middle of the street and sidewalks for pedestrians. There will be gaps between small groups of booths to allow people to easily access local businesses, Martin said.

Artist’s booths will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, while live music at the Town Plaza goes from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Saturday’s final show featuring the Cocktail Monkeys starts at 7 p.m.

“It’s going to be a mini Music in the Park,” Martin said. “We’re bringing people in, not cars, and that’s a positive thing.”

The music goes from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the plaza, with the Los Gatos-based Houserockers kicking off the final show at 3 p.m.

Artist’s booths are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Fiesta de Artes is the Kiwanis club’s biggest annual fundraiser and benefits a variety of local programs. Members expect to gross about $50,000 before expenses.

“Our No. 1 program is the Turnaround Scholarship Program for at-risk teens who are in danger of not graduating,” Martin said. “That’s about $10,000. We spend another $10,000 for academic scholarships, sponsor the Hippity Hop Easter Egg Hunt and sponsored the bike decorating booth and bike parade at the Red, White and Blue Block Party.”

The July 1 block party was apparently well received by residents and business owners in its first year. North Santa Cruz was also closed for that event, but just for one day.

The town conducted two online surveys after the block party, with 80 percent of the resident respondents saying it should be held again next summer. Fifty-eight percent said traffic was the same as is typical for a holiday weekend.

Fifty-six percent of the businesses surveyed said their business declined, 31 percent said it increased and 56 percent recommended holding the block party next year.

“I thought we did really well,” Jennifer Alexander Designs manager Chelsea Dix said. “Our regular customers came in; they didn’t even know the street was closed.” Dix held a sale on July 1 to draw customers.

Down the street at the Library men’s store, owner Christian Croll also had a block party sale. “I was very busy because I had a sign out front that said, ‘T-shirts for $10.’ I probably sold well over 50 T-shirts, which is a lot for me,” Croll said.

Since January, the Kiwanis club has been working with the Chamber of Commerce to notify merchants and restaurants about the Fiesta and all that’s involved, but they received little to no feedback, Martin said.

And he was disappointed that Willow Street Pizza was the only restaurant that stepped forward to staff a food booth. Other restaurants indicated they didn’t have the manpower to staff a booth.

What type of food—if any—will be served at the Fiesta remains in limbo. The Chamber of Commerce informally polled members of its food and wine committee, who said they would not object to food trucks being brought in for the festival.

But town manager Laurel Prevetti told the town council Tuesday night that “food trucks are not permitted in our (town) code.” She added that an exception was made to allow food trucks at Fiesta de Artes in the past because the event was held at the civic center—just far enough away to avoid competing with downtown restaurants.

“This is one of the issues that our police chief is continuing to work through with Kiwanis and we are hopeful for an amicable decision,” Prevetti said.

Problem is, if there’s no food at the Fiesta they can’t serve wine, beer or sangria either.

That could put a damper on the festival, which usually attracts thousands of people over the course of 2-days.

“It’s easily 10- to 15,000, but it’s hard to quantify,” Martin said. “We order a couple thousand wine glasses and beer cups, and they’re gone by the end of the weekend. Those numbers alone are close to 10,000.”

Many festival-goers are parents with children.

“We’re starting to see more and more families with strollers and kids cruising along, so we’re paying more attention to our kids’ area,” Martin said. “It’s interesting to figure out what they like, but it’s all about entertaining those kids. We’ll have jump houses, slides, face painting and more carnival-esque items.”

On Saturday, festival-goers can park in any of the town-owned lots between North Santa Cruz and University avenues, but parking time limits will be enforced. “They can also park on the other side of Highway 9, the civic center or at the high school,” Martin said. “There’s lots of free places for people to park.”

Sunday’s parking is different because the farmers’ market is moving to the upper level of the town-owned parking lot between Elm Street and Grays Lane. The market runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Visit lgfiesta.org or call 408-395-8016 for more information.