Soap Lake to bring art, musical festival to city

SOAP LAKE — In an effort to increase tourism dollars and bring about a renewed interest in Soap Lake, its councilmembers have pledged funds to help bring a festival that is centered around wine, art, music and marijuana to the city in late May.

During Wednesday night’s council meeting Tara Shuttleworth, owner of the Seattle-based company Babette’s Events, petitioned the council to expend funds to the Soap Lake Chamber of Commerce in order to allow a two-day art and musical festival, dubbed “WAMM (Wine, Art, Music and Marijuana),” to come to Smokiam Park on Memorial Day weekend.

From live painting, to temporary art installations, musicians, performing artists, two stages of entertainment, professional sound systems, a 40-foot wine and beer tent, craft vendors, and marijuana education booths, the free event will be a hodge podge of sights, sounds, tastes and smells for people to take in and experience.

Shuttleworth said she has already got a marijuana farm on-board as an event sponsor.

“At this time we are unable to smoke marijuana in public spaces. But we can talk about the benefits of marijuana in our state. As well as what it can do for people medicinally,” Shuttleworth told the council. “With everything that is going on right now with the town when it comes to the mineral water and getting people to remember what Soap Lake is all about, I think this would be an excellent way to put Soap Lake back on the map.

Shuttleworth said the total cost of the event is about $59,000 and requested Soap Lake put up $20,000, with the remainder of the funds coming from outside sources. The proposal was met with interest from the majority of councilmembers, who were intrigued about the prospect of tourism dollars that will be spent in the city.

“We have a limited scope with the marijuana industry because of the size of the town and the amount of restricted land that we have. But we do have the parks and they are available for things like this, because it’s not really like people are going to be smoking pot,” councilmember John Glassco remarked. “So I think this is an excellent event that might really turn into something over time.”

The council unanimously voted to expend $20,000 to the Soap Lake Chamber of Commerce from the city’s tourism fund for the WAMM event.