International folk fair shuffles north for now

The SPIFFS festival in March will fill a Pinellas Park hall instead of the Bayfront Center.

ST. PETERSBURG - The yearly international folk fair, a highlight on the city calendar for more than a quarter of a century, is moving a few miles up the road - temporarily, organizers hope.

The ethnic festival and its food and music will be held next year at the Pinellas Expo Center, on U.S. 19 in Pinellas Park.

The fair's usual venue, the Bayfront Center arena, is expected to be torn down soon.

"We just don't have anywhere to go," said Gayle Stewart-Wallace, the director of the St. Petersburg International Folk Fair Society.

No specific date has been set for demolition of the Bayfront arena, city officials say. But SPIFFS operates on a tight schedule and couldn't take chances that the place it has used for most of the fair's 28 years wouldn't be available.

The 2004 Folk Fair runs March 17-21. As usual, the first three days are for schools. The student-only days were a big reason SPIFFS had to nail down a venue.

The society strives to reach youngsters, and many teachers see the fair as a chance to educate about harmony among nations and faces. But the opportunity has to be scheduled around the FCAT and spring break.

"It has to be a sure thing for schools," said Stewart-Wallace. "It can't be maybes."

The fair occupied Tropicana Field (then known as the ThunderDome) from 1991 to 1996, she said. But that was before Major League Baseball.

Now there are complicating elements that would make it difficult to count on the Tropicana. So SPIFFS and the Expo Center started talking.

"They have leaned over backward for us," said Bethia Caffery, who started the fair in 1976.

The 105,000-square-foot Expo Center, at 10601 U.S. 19 N, has plenty of room for the exhibits, stages and booths for several dozen ethnic clubs and the 4,000-plus volunteers who put on the fair.

The Expo Center's location on U.S. 19 also is expected to draw people who otherwise might not know about the event or who feel that it would be difficult to drive to downtown St. Petersburg.

"We hope it will be a positive to be there because we'll be reaching more people upcounty," Caffery said.

The fair's venue after next year hasn't been settled.

"Don't think we are leaving St. Petersburg. We'll always be in St. Petersburg. We are St. Petersburg," Caffery said. SPIFFS has its headquarters at the Mirror Lake Shuffleboard Club downtown.

For the first time this New Year's Eve, SPIFFS will host a First Night venue. Ethnic groups will perform at the Sunshine Center, 330 Fifth St. N.

Using the Expo won't be SPIFFS' first venture into Pinellas Park. The organization has put on a fall festival in a park for several years.

But outdoors doesn't work well for the five-day folk fair. Rain drenched the event one year of its two-year stint in Vinoy Park, and school administrators expressed concerns about student safety outside.

Organizers are willing to hear proposals about potential sites.

"We're open to the future, and the future is open," Caffery said.

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