Fan Fest to create ‘Seahawks City’ this weekend

This weekend, Ocean Shores will transform into “Seahawks City” for the fourth annual Seahawks Fan Fest.

By Scott D. Johnston

For Twin Harbors Newspaper Group

This weekend, Ocean Shores will transform into “Seahawks City” for the fourth annual Seahawks Fan Fest.

Based at the Ocean Shores Convention Center, the event takes over the entire peninsula with entertainment and activities from a kickoff tailgate party Thursday at Oyhut Bay to a preseason game party and charity auction Saturday at Quinault Beach Resort & Casino.

Over 30 Seahawks alumni, family members and notable superfans will be in town to participate in a variety of activities, including a golf tournament, mini golf, 5K run/walk, scavenger hunt, go-karts, bumper cars, bowling, charity fundraising meals and the Grand Parade.

The weekend also features the Kidzone, live music with the Back Burner Band and Pontiac Alley, Seattle radio personalities, the double-decker portable party known as the Beast Bus, line dancing performances by the Boot Boogie Babes, Galway Bay’s beer garden, and more than 70 vendors offering almost every kind of Seahawks merchandise imaginable.

The event grew out of a simple gathering of a few hundred Hawks fans on the beach at the Damon Road approach in August 2014. The following year saw at least 5,000 attend the first official Fan Fest at the Convention Center.

By the end of last year’s event, which drew an estimated 20,000-plus, it was clear to organizers that the Ocean Shores Fan Fest had outgrown the ability of a fan-based club to produce.

Last fall, a couple of fans in the Olympia area who happen to own and operate events and promotions companies offered to get involved. Ultimately, Dan Lang and his company, DLS Media, joined forces with Michael Goff’s Arsenal Promotions to create a nonprofit organization, Five Star Events, to continue one of the original visions for Fan Fest: that it benefit various charities.

“I used to do music, concerts in the park, promoting entertainment and bands in Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia. Michael works with several current players and does special promotions with businesses,” Lang explained. “Friends of ours ran the event the last three years. Because it got to be too much for them, they were going to let it go. We are affiliated with them and we did not want to see it dissolve. When we heard this, we really wanted to be a part and keep it happening. We stepped up, and they passed the baton to us.”

Lang said the event was in danger when QBRC reduced its sponsorship in May. The Ocean Shores City Council first turned down Five Star’s request for $10,000 in lodging tax funds that are earmarked for tourism promotion, then reversed itself and approved the funding at its May 29 meeting.

That hurdle behind them, Lang said, “We’re really excited to get other people involved in the event. A ton of extra promotional things have gone into this that we haven’t had in past. I think this is going to set a new bar for events in Ocean Shores.”

As this year’s primary beneficiary, Lang and Goff have chosen the Washington chapter of Sheep Dog Impact Assistance, a national nonprofit organization of more than 5,000 members that, according to its website, “exists to engage, assist and empower the men and women who make up our nation’s military, law enforcement, fire and rescue, and EMS professions — society’s protectors, our ‘Sheep Dogs.’”

The complete schedule is below. For more information, visit www.fanfest­oceanshores.com.

Fan Fest to create ‘Seahawks City’ this weekend
Angelo Bruscas | Twin Harbors Newspaper Group                                Event organizer Terry Johnson, of the Mighty 12s Alliance Seahawks fan organization, greets Mr. and Mrs. Seahawk (Jeff and DeDe Schumaier of Auburn) before the raising of the 12th Man flag at the Ocean Shores Convention Center in 2016.

Angelo Bruscas | Twin Harbors Newspaper Group Event organizer Terry Johnson, of the Mighty 12s Alliance Seahawks fan organization, greets Mr. and Mrs. Seahawk (Jeff and DeDe Schumaier of Auburn) before the raising of the 12th Man flag at the Ocean Shores Convention Center in 2016.