Tacoma’s Ocean Fest postponed amid coronavirus concerns. Online offerings available this month
Tacoma Ocean Fest, a one-day free festival originally set to take place June 7, has been postponed to Sept. 13.
The one-day, free festival on Tacoma’s waterfront is held to celebrate World Ocean weekend.
It now has turned to online workshops to fill the void.
One such event is a series of film workshops over Zoom led by Chhay Mam, lead instructor at the non-profit Create Films, which will take place over the next several weeks.
“It’s just a film class for Ocean Fest kids who want to make the videos,” Mam said. “We’re just going to give them some information about where they can get royalty free music, royalty free images, royalty free video, and give them some ideas.
“Our main focus is to get kids to understand visual storytelling.”
The dates of Mam’s workshops are May 13, May 20 and May 27 all at 3pm. Sign-ups can be done online or by emailing at info@createfilms.org.
The workshops are centered around a contest for middle and high schoolers who live or study in the Tacoma School District or at Chief Leschi Schools. Students can submit a poem, film or data graph to enter the “Youth Story Contest,” with all submissions getting a free coupon from sponsor Round Table Pizza.
Finalists will get to present their work at Ocean Fest whenever that occurs.
Students can submit entries, get details and access other online resources at tacomaoceanfest.org/youthstory.
There also is an ocean science workshop to be led by marine biologist Emily Pinckney, which will take place on May 14.
As for whether there can be some form of Ocean Fest in-person come September, there is still a large degree of uncertainty.
“Nobody knows where the world is going to be on Sept. 13,” Ponnekanti said. “I’m going to follow the governor’s guidelines.”
As for whether the event would be canceled outright, Ponnekanti said that was not an option.
“Part of the grant money that is supporting it comes with the requirement to have some sort of public programming,” she said.
The event if it were to occur online would have to make itself more broadly accessible than the offerings in May.
This story was originally published May 13, 2020 at 5:10 AM.
