More summer festivals

Summer is in full swing in Park City, which means that we are awash in various festivals and music events. This past weekend, Park City was host to our annual Food and Wine Festival where vintners from all around the west gather and showcase their wines in a variety of venues. The two most popular events were the Friday afternoon Main Street stroll and Saturday afternoon at the Canyons Resort. For the Main Street Stroll on Friday afternoon, various vintners take over numerous restaurants up and down Main Street. Participants start off on the Plaza at the Town Lift bridge where a variety of food and wine booths start the revelry. Participants then wander up and down Main Street at their leisure, popping in at designated establishments to sample a specific vintner's wares. All of this is done with guidebooks and rating sheets to help everyone remember just which wines it was that they liked, which of course can be a problem after many hours of sampling. This is truly a great time and great people-watching as the streets are packed with festival-goers carrying wine glasses and big smiles. Saturday's event at the Canyons Resort is a little more structured as it all takes place on the Plaza at the base of the Canyons. There the various vintners set up booths around the plaza where participants freely move about the plaza sampling their favorite wines. Again a great event for people-watching and enjoying a beautiful afternoon in the mountains.



Another of the long-standing traditional events in Park City are the outdoor concerts from the Utah Symphony. Each summer Deer Valley constructs a beautiful stage and amphitheater for all of their concerts, and it is a perfect venue for outdoor music. There is nothing better than sitting on the grass on a ski run, surrounded by beautiful mountains, listening to music. As with all Park City events, event attendees are permitted to bring picnic baskets and their favorite beverages. This year the Utah Symphony will continue its tradition of combining pop music with the symphony. Coming up in the next week the symphony will be performing "The Music of the Eagles." Then later this summer, "The Music of Queen." What's fun with these is that as much as possible, the Symphony attempts to have a couple of original group members performing with them. Unfortunately, for the Queen performance, Freddie Mercury is no longer with us as he would have been incredible to see perform. Of course for those of us who grew up listening to the Eagles and Queen, it may not seem quite right to listen to their music performed by a symphony while enjoying a glass of Chardonnay. What happened to the days of whiskey and tequila? 

In real estate news, buyers are in town and are both looking and purchasing. Comparing May 2010 to May 2011 home sales were up both in number of sales and average price. 54 homes sold in May 2010 compared to 66 in 2011 for a 22% increase. Average sold price in 2010 was $754,454 and $963,063 in 2011 for an increase of 29%. While the number of condo sales was up 33%, 15 in 2010 compared to 20 in 2011, average sales price was down 50%, $562,427 in 2010 to $277,325 in 2011. Obviously showing the continued trend of buyers looking for and purchasing bargains. Right after the ski season ends buyers start looking for distressed sellers and sellers not wanting to carry their property for another summer...low offers were the norm and buyers made as many offers as needed to get a favorable response. Check in next week as I will have the sales numbers for the first half of the year. Should be quite interesting.

The mountains are as green and lush as I have ever seen for July and the wildflowers are in full bloom in the lower elevations. I expect that it will be August before the flowers bloom in the higher elevations. So come out and experience summer in the mountains.