All eyes were on the skies Wednesday evening for the opening of the 2025 iteration of the Penticton Peach Festival.
And not just because it was the much-anticipated return of the Canadian Forces Snowbirds jet aerobatic team after an absence of six years.
And not just because the Canadian Armed Forces Skyhawks Parachute Team were once again in town to perform their remarkable jumping routines for Penticton's biggest annual festival.
Nor was it the air-grabbing bikes of Canadian Tire Mega Motocross.
Those were great reasons to be sure, but on this Wednesday gazes were trained westward from mid-afternoon on for a completely different reason.
Environment Canada had been predicting some potentially nasty stuff for dinner hour Wednesday since early in the week, and now the dark clouds were building.
Still, the planned activities of late afternoon went ahead without a hiccup.
At 4:30, the always popular Mega Motocross folks were at it again on a temporarily closed section of Lakeshore Drive, heroically hurtling their dirt bikes high into the sky to thrill an appreciate crowd of several hundred.
Simultaneously in the adjacent Okanagan Lake Park, scene of the majority of activities throughout the festival, another repeat fave showed their stuff to the crowd.
It was the locally-based Black Widow Rope Spinners and their similarly airborne routine, keeping the audience engaged throughout.
But the big guns were still on their way.
First up were the Skyhawks, jumping individually and in groups from a "Shorts SC7 Skyvan" aircraft and gracefully falling to earth carrying paraphernalia like Canadian and BC flags and often trailing colored smoke.
Sometimes they'd link legs and create sky patterns. It was, as always, highly impressive stuff.
Sadly, one the final Skyhawks jumpers seemed to catch a last-second gust of wind as she landed. She hit the ground hard and awkwardly and stayed down for a bit, assisted by her compatriots and medical personnel.
The jumper in question eventually made it out of the park under her own power. And a fellow Skyhawk at the time told PentictonNow the injury didn’t appear serious. But we put a call through to Skyhawks' media relation desk anyway and are awaiting word on the cause and/or her condition.
"The Peach Festival board is checking in with the injured Skyhawk and wishes her a speedy recovery," said Festival prez Shawna Tinga Thursday morning.
Next on the schedule was a performance by Penticton's own singer-songwriter Chayce Kennedy, followed by the opening ceremonies.
But two songs into Kennedy's half-hour set, the skies opened up.
And we're not talking your average rainstorm. This was fire and brimstone type stuff. It was ferocious and it was merciless.
There was thunder, there was lightning, there was wind, there were hellish black clouds everywhere. But mostly there was pounding, unrelenting, deafening rain. It felt like someone dropped a bathtub of water on your head every second.
Okay, we exaggerate. Slightly.
But within a couple minutes, the crowd was headed for cover. They cowered under tents and umbrellas and whatever trees they could find. But that wasn't enough. This rain was on a seek and destroy mission.
Soon, much of the park was virtually empty. Thousands of people gone. Many had fled the scene entirely, headed back to their cars and trucks and perhaps all the way home.
And then, just when it seemed hopeless, a glimmer of blue sky. Then a bit more. Then, just as quickly as it had arrived, the rain stopped.
And relative calm returned.
But what would the interruption do to opening night?
In the grand scheme of things, not a ton. Indeed, just when it looked like Penticton would wait another year for a Snowbirds performance, the skies cleared enough and the winds died enough that they could safely fly.
And that they did. The final allotment for the evening was eight rather than nine Snowbirds, but that was more than enough for those who'd now returned to the park.
The Snowbirds thrilled the rain-impacted crowd for 40-plus minutes, throwing at least a couple of spectacular new moves into the routine in the process.
After, the night's program was shortened noticeably to help recover the hour that went missing due to the storm.
Chayce Kennedy never got the chance to finish her set. The opening ceremonies were truncated. And the Reel PeachFest Film Festival was cut.
The Black Widow Rope spinners returned for an abbreviated evening show while Vancouver dance band Rain City 6 went through its sound check.
Rain City put on a solid show and looked great doing it, and soon enough various members of the crowd were on the big dance floor up front, likely drying themselves off while moving about.
Then it was time for the evening's big draw, Montreal-based synth-pop band Men Without Hats.
MWH didn’t hit the charts a lot in its 80s heyday. But when it did, it hit big.
The ridiculously catchy "The Safety Dance" was by far the biggest. Released in 1983, it was a global sensation and today seems to be one of those tunes virtually everyone knows.
The band, with a radically changed lineup from its hit-making days, kept the crowd's attention throughout but really got them going late when they expertly reeled off The Safety Dance and a few credible covers too.
The good news going forward is a distinct lack of stormy weather in the immediate forecast.
For more info on Peach Fest 2025, which Thursday night goes country with artists like Jojo Mason and Kyle McKearney, head here.
