A sign started it all. In 1940, a group of local women business owners from the Women’s Business Association donated the original Hillcrest sign to the neighborhood, but by the time activists got to the sign in the early 1980s, it had been dark for more than 40 years. In 1984 a growing group of active, local volunteers raised more than $4,000 to restore the neglected sign, in addition to adding pink neon lights (courtesy of California Neon Company) to the traditional sign. The official re-hanging and illumination of the 21-foot-long, 800-pound Hillcrest sign that year generated excitement throughout Hillcrest and the city’s oldest and largest free street fair was born.

Now in its 21st year, the one-day annual festival sponsored by Hillcrest’s Business Improvement District takes place this Sunday, Aug. 8, from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. With more than 350 vendors lining Fifth Avenue from Spruce Street north to University Avenue, it’s a day not to be missed. As always, there will be plenty of musical entertainment, arts, crafts, food courts and beverages, with three margarita and beer gardens and numerous booths hawking fine art, crafts, imported goods, home décor and even the advice of psychics. For those adventurous types, a rock-climbing wall will be on site and solo musicians will be scattered throughout the festival grounds. Expected attendance is estimated at close to 150,000 people for this annual neighborhood party also known as the “free Pride”.

Three stages will feature a variety of rock and roll, jazz and funk music groups along with performances by the Oceanside dance troupe Fusion Force. Entertainers include Michele Lundeen, Sue Palmer, The Impounders, Theo & Zydeco Patrol, Ruby & The Red Hots, D.A. & The Hitmen, Bayou Brothers, The Corvettes, Candye Kane, Jennifer Corday and Rookie Card.

First-time City Fest features this year include the convenient addition of a free parking lot shuttle service to and from various lots around the City Fest area. And the now well-known “SEAL Mobile,” an airbrushed mural painted on a modern day ambulance in tribute to the victims of 9-11, will be on display at City Fest. At 9:30 a.m., San Diego Deputy Mayor Toni Atkins will be on hand to welcome Pete Carolan, the mural artist and a local Navy SEAL reservist, and crew to City Fest. In addition, to the ambulance exhibit, artifacts from the buildings of the 9-11 attacks, will be on display and 9-11 commemorative coins will be sold to help support an upcoming 9-11 memorial concert in Balboa Park.

Volunteers from the community are the backbone of the festival each year. For close to 20 years, Ann Garwood has served on the board of directors for the Hillcrest Association and has been heavily involved in volunteering to help organize City Fest events, as well as owning Ad Ink, a local advertising agency.

“We get up at 4:00 a.m. and we go down Fifth Avenue,” says Garwood, who volunteers each year marking the streets up to show where various vendors put their booths. “… Then the sun comes up and then our work’s over and we get to enjoy City Fest.”

In 1985 the festival was officially named “City Fest” and was put on by the Hillcrest Association one spring. Bob Walker, owner of The Gallery Store, organized a juried art show and more than 5,000 people showed up, filling Fifth Avenue. As the story goes, spirited souls painted right on the street to express their excitement. Unfortunately, the next day a major story about the spur-of-the-moment painting ran on the front page of the Union-Tribune, and the Hillcrest Association became responsible for the paint removal on the streets to the tune of $1,200, according to Steve Zolezzi, Hillcrest Association president at the time.

“This was really fun but we got in trouble,” recalls Garwood. “Everyone got creative with the paint and they painted up the streets.”

The Hillcrest Association subsequently had hesitations about running another City Fest the following year, but local activists banded together, threatening to throw their own festival with or without the Hillcrest Association’s support.

“The Hillcrest Association didn’t want to do it the next year, but then went ahead and had it anyway and we have had it every year ever since. It has just kept growing,” says Garwood.

One of the most important reasons why City Fest thrives is that it creates a sense of community involvement. The GLBT community is considered to be a major force behind the festival’s popularity – and behind Hillcrest itself, with the community largely credited with making Hillcrest what it is today.

“Gay communities tend to live in areas that are older neighborhoods that we can get into and build up,” says Garwood. “Hillcrest was run down in the 1970s, then gay people started to move in, buying property. … We helped bring it back.”

One of the most distinguishing features of City Fest is that it’s free to the public.

“City Fest is open to everybody,” says Garwood. “You can hear Sue Palmer, D.A. & the Hitmen, Laura Jane, and still have five dollars in your pocket to get a sandwich.”

It’s the community involvement and activism that many feel has brought out the best in local residents of Hillcrest.

“If those first folks weren’t interested in raising money and redoing the sign there wouldn’t be a City Fest today,” says Garwood “All walks of life can come into Hillcrest on City Fest and be exposed to the gay community in a positive way.”

In addition to the feel-good factor is the added benefit of actual funds generated by the event, all of which goes back into the neighborhood. Hillcrest Association Executive Director Warren Simon is in charge of allocating funds generated from City Fest. He expects to generate about $35,000 in proceeds from this year’s festival, to be allocated toward community and civic projects. These include: the planting of 19 additional trees along University Avenue completing the sidewalk renovation project set to take place later this Fall; the Elite Walking Ambassadors program which provides security to the neighborhood; landscape maintenance of all 119 trees maintained in the neighborhood; 700 light bulbs replaced on Fifth Avenue by November; an anti-graffiti program throughout the neighborhood; maintenance of a new Hillcrest Association website; and general cleanup of the neighborhood, all to be financed from City Fest funds.

“These are all visible signs of the public support of City Fest,” says Simon. “We really enjoy the participation and support of our community. Mostly because we know our purpose is civic improvement and a cleaner and safer environment for Hillcrest.”

Event sponsors of City Fest this year include: Hillcrest Association, Anheuser-Busch Sales of San Diego, radio station 103.7 The Planet, Rancho Auto Group, Sycuan Resort and Casino, Colortyme Rent-To-Own and Prudential Financial.

“City Fest is [about] the support and acknowledgement of the wider community of Hillcrest,” says Simon. “This is their expression of our goals as an association and group of volunteers that work throughout the year.”