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06/07/2017 08:30 AMIn 1985, Camille Linke came out to the Branford Green to hear Arlo Guthrie sing at the very first Branford Festival. From Friday, June 16 through Sunday, June 18, Camille will welcome thousands of Branford Festival fans to the Town Green for the 33rd annual Branford Festival.
As 2017 Branford Festival chairman, Camille has the inside scoop on everything planned for this year’s three-day event that’s Branford’s unofficial start to summer. The fest still features wow-factor live music, and every year, the question is always the same, “What’s the entertainment?” says Camille, laughing.
Rest assured, “Dennis Nardella, our chairman of the festival for the past three years, puts together our incredible entertainment. He’s working with Mario DiNoto, and they’ve done it again,” she says.
This year’s Town Hall festival main stage will be rocking with line-up of locals and area favorites, topped by headliners including: Wanted DOA, The Ultimate Bon Jovi Tribute (Friday, June 16, at 8:45 p.m.) and “Bruce in the USA,” the definitive Bruce Springsteen tribute band (Saturday, June 17, at 9 p.m.).
Of course, things have changed quite a bit from the very first Branford Festival. Born as a music fest, the event has evolved to include three days of food, fun, entertainment, and signature activities wrapped around the charm of Branford’s New England town green.
Fair food offerings will range from fried dough to funnel cakes, empañadas to strawberry shortcake, lobster rolls to pancakes and all manners of taste temptations in between. No fewer than 17 food vendors will populate the popular Food Court each day of the festival.
As always, the fest’s midway rides will be ready for kids down by the Academy on the Green. In addition to favorite fair rides, there are always some interesting extras, notes Camille.
“We did a ‘Hamster Ball’ last year, and the kids loved it so much, we’ve extended it,” she says of the kid-powered rolling adventure.
Transitioning folks from the fair and food court down to the midway are a string of family-fun activity booths, tables, and tents, staffed by community volunteers. Meanwhile, on both the main stage and at the back stage area, entertainment takes place.
On Saturday, June 17, the Green along Main Street fills with the tents and tempting offerings of the annual Shoreline Chamber of Craft & Business Expo. Sunday’s crowd includes thousands who come to town to take off for the annual Father’s Day Branford Road Race and closes with the festival’s Classic Car Show.
“People reserve Father’s Day weekend for the festival,” says Camille. “Since the days of the Road Race, they’ve known that’s the weekend to come to Branford.”
As a Branford resident since 1976, supporting the Branford Festival has been a Linke family tradition for Camille, her husband Arnie, and their two children. Camille heard about the first Branford Festival from a notice in the news.
“We saw it in the paper that Arlo Guthrie was coming to a Branford festival, the very first on the Branford Green. So we decided to come with our children. We sat them on some blankets and we had a really good time, and we’ve been going ever since. That was 33 years ago,” says Camille. “They were part of the first Branford Festival, and now, they bring their own children.”
When her kids were in Branford Public Schools, Camille began helping them as community volunteers at Branford Festivals. For the past 19 years, she’s also been helping the Town of Branford, as an administrative assistant. Camille started out with Branford Fire Department (seven years) and then was hired as administrative assistant for both Branford’s General Government Buildings Department and Wastewater Treatment Department.
By 2005, Camille’s highly respected administrative skills and her volunteer efforts with Branford Festival led to an invitation to join the all-volunteer, non-profit festival’s Publicity Committee. Since that time, she’s been the team liaison handling the advance news and publication of all things Branford Fest, including the all-important festival booklet each year.
“People look for it every year. It goes out in [The Sound] and we have it at the Volunteer Tent. I always put little tabs in the one in the tent, because someone will want to know where a certain food vendor is, or what’s the entertainment, and I have it all set up so you can turn right to the page they need,” says Camille. “The booklet’s very helpful, people take it around the Green with them. This year’s is really beautiful, with the Festival Print as the cover.”
The print, Autumn on the Branford Green, is a gorgeous fall photo by Raye Sorrentino of North Light Gallery & Framing of Branford. High quality, frame-worthy copies of the annual Festival Print are always a popular souvenir.
Camille notes a great way to support the festival is to make a $30 residential donation this year, because, “For a $30 donation, you get a free Branford Festival Print.”
Camille kept her role as publicity chairman this year while also acting as 2017 Branford Festival Chairman. She thanks Festival Social Media Chair and The Sound/Shore Publishing Publisher Robyn Collins-Wolcott “for stepping in to help me a lot this year with the booklet, because I had a lot of other hats to wear,” says Camille. “Being festival chairman was a bit more overwhelming than I imagined!”
That being said, “I kept up with it!” says Camille, smiling. “And I got the chance to work with all of the committee chairs as peers, which has been great. I have a whole new admiration for what they do! They are all so involved with all of the details that are needed to pull every area together.”
For her part, getting to know the work of the Operations Committee was an eye-opener, Camille adds.
“The Operations Committee is huge,” says Camille of the behind-the-scenes group. “They’re the nuts and bolts of everything that goes up. From tents to electricity to the water, they’re on top of everything. They are very, very important to the success of the festival.”
Beginning Sunday, June 11, Camille and a small army of festival volunteers will pull together the finishing touches of the fest, starting with hanging sponsor banners and flags to decorate the Green and downtown’s Main Street area.
“We are so grateful to have the banners to help recognize our sponsors. They make a huge contribution to help keep this going every year,” says Camille. “We also couldn’t do it without the responses to our residential fundraiser letter that goes out every year. Those individual donations really help us as well.”
Many who contribute return to the festival every year and want to support the event they love, says Camille.
“So many people return year after year,” she says. “It may be the one time of year when they see people they grew up with, or their schoolmates, even if they’ve been out of school for years.”
Count Camille’s kids, members of Branford High School (BHS) Classes of 1998 and 2001, among them.
“My kids come back every year, and they get to touch base with their old friends. They all have their own children now, so it’s really amazing.”
Speaking of BHS, Camille says she couldn’t be more pleased—and saddened—to be the final festival chair to open Friday’s events with a choral performance led by BHS Choir Director Cathyann Roding, who retires at the end of this school year.
“It’s kind of heartwarming to the chairman this year, for her last performance here. My children were in her concert choirs, and my son was in her musicals, and I even took a trip with their group when she took them to Europe,” says Camille. “She really is a special woman and she’s going to be missed dearly.”
Roding and the BHS Concert Choir will sing during Friday’s Opening Ceremonies, which begin at 5 p.m. on June 16. With just a week until the curtain rises on the 2017 Branford Festival, Camille would like to invite anyone who wants to volunteer during the three-day event to sign up soon.
“Volunteers are always needed. Even if it’s just to man a tent for a little while or cover activities, just to give our committee members a bit of break with some extra help would be so great,” says Camille.
Like so many committee members, Camille knows how her festival weekend will begin—by getting to work several days ahead of time, and staying on the job during all three days, and in the days after it ends.
“Oh, I’m up at the crack of dawn on festival days; we all are,” says Camille, laughing. “We’re here at seven in the morning setting up and we’re here when it’s over. And then when it’s over, we’re here cleaning up the tables and setting up for the next day, so that the next morning, we’re ready to go again!”
To volunteer for the 2017 Branford Festival or to find much information on the events, activities and entertainment planned for the 33rd annual Branford Festival, visit www.branfordfestival.com.