For the second straight year, the pandemic has cancelled the Mariposa Folk Festival, which would have took centre stage in Orillia this weekend.
But the spirit of the event will continue as 15 to 20 vintage Volkswagen buses will converge on the city to parade down Mississaga Street Saturday.
Linda Alcock and her husband Doug have organized the Volkswagen bus event to support the Streets Alive art initiative, which chose hippie vans for this year’s theme.
The bus event’s participants are folks who are a part of the Buses at Mariposa group who camp each year at the Mariposa Folk Festival.
“Given that the festival isn’t on this year, and given that we have a pretty wide community, we put out a call to see if a bunch of our friends with buses wanted to do a drive up Mississaga Street to kind of honour the Streets Alive buses,” Alcock explained.
“We are going to meet at the Walmart Parking lot at 10 a.m., and once we get everyone organized, we are going to drive along Coldwater to Front Street, along Front to Mississaga, and then we will turn right onto West Street and do another pass.”
Alcock encourages folks who want to see the buses driving by to be downtown by 10:30 a.m. on Saturday morning.
“Our hope is to park the busses around town, relatively close to the main street, once we are done the drive-by. We want people to be able to wander around and check out the buses, see the insides of them, and kind of hang out for a couple of hours,” she said.
Alcock says the buses are must-see for vehicle lovers and people who enjoy vintage pop culture.
“We always get lots of great feedback from people who come see us at different events. We have a lot of musicians who drive these buses, so they always start little jam sessions. People have a lot of fun interacting with the busses and their owners,” she said.
“When people see the buses, they always say they are really cool vehicles. As owners, we love them for many reasons, they are just wonderful vehicles, and it’s a fabulous group of people who drive them.”
