The Sands Point Preserve is hosting its first Long Island Fairy Festival, a day for kids and youthful adults to experience the magic of the mythical spirits and the preserve’s natural environment.
The all-day festival will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 6, at the Sands Point Preserve. In the case of rain, the festival will be pushed to the following day, May 7.
Director of Operations Linda Nutter said the festival is a day of anything fairy-related one could think of.
“It’s basically a celebration of magic and nature and fairies,” Nutter said. “We’re looking forward to people having a day where their imagination can just run free and people can feel that thrill of child-like wonder again.”
Activities and performers include a fairy house walk featuring fairy houses built by community members, photos with the Queen of the Woodland Fairies, music, aerialists, face painting and a fairy art exhibit.
Leading up to the event, community members have been building fairy houses to be included in the event’s fairy house walk. Fairy houses are small homes built of natural materials to welcome back the fairies, elves, gnomes and other woodland creatures to the preserve.
The preserve held fairy house workshops to help community members build them. Community members can drop off fairy houses to be included in the walk on May 4 and May 5.
Nancy Sinoway, a prominent Port Washington designer who closed her design studio to start her new wedding business, made the dress for the Queen of the Woodland Fairies.
Nutter said the preserve has had the idea to host a fairy festival for many years, but it never materialized until now. The preserve has been actively working on establishing the festival since October.
She said she got the idea to host the festival after years of taking her daughter to fairy festivals in New Hampshire when she was younger. For years Nutter has dreamt of bringing it to Sands Point and now finally will.
“We really have the perfect place for [the festival],” Nutter said. “We have a pond, we have the beach, we have the trails, we have the great lawn. So we have a lot of space here for it and I always thought it would be perfectly situated here because it’s a magical place anyway.”
Nutter said there are about 28 community partners and nine sponsors for the festival, making it a community-building event. The festival is also a fund-raiser for the preserve.
Since this is the first event of its kind at the preserve, Nutter does not know what kind of turnout to expect, but she pointed out that the Sands Point Preserve has hosted events in the past with 2,000-3,000 attendees.
Tickets must be bought in advance and can be purchased via the Sands Point Preserve website. Tickets will not be sold at the event.
Pricing is based per car to encourage carpooling. Cars with up to five people – including children 3 years and older through adults – cost $85, while cars with six to eight people cost $100.
Admission prices include parking and most of the festival’s activities but do not include food or the vendor market.