Sand sculpting festival returning to Navarre

The Sand Sculpting Festival is returning to Navarre Beach in September for the third year in a row.

The Santa Rosa County Tourist Development Council discussed the festival’s return during a Feb. 15 meeting and considered ways to eventually make the event self-sustaining.

Festival organizers Bill and Marianne Knight attended the meeting to give the TDC ideas for the next festival. Bill is the co-founder of Sand Lubbers, a professional sand-sculpting company that holds some of the largest sand-sculpting events in the U.S.

“We run five big events in the U.S., but Navarre Beach is our favorite,” he said. “It isn’t the largest yet but we love it here.”

Bill said the goal of the festival, which attracted about 30,000 people to Navarre Beach last year, was to make it sustainable without the TDC having to use bed-tax money to fund it. The TDC was able to use money from BP to organize and promote the first two years of the festival, but that money is no longer available this year.

He suggested trying to find major sponsors for the event and also put together appealing local sponsorship packages to entice more local businesses to participate. 

For more on this story, see the Feb. 23 issue of Navarre Press or subscribe online.