Dragon Boat Festival rides a new wave

Dragon Boat Festival takes page from its past to accommodate bigger 2008 event at Sloan's Lake

By Michael Mehle, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 24, 2008 at 7 p.m.

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Photo by Linda Mcconnell / The Rocky/2002

Built on a 2,000-year-old Chinese tradition, the dragon boats have been racing on Sloan's Lake for just seven years. During that time, crowds have grown from 15,000 to more than 100,000 to watch the amateur teams compete.

Photo by David M. Barreda / The Rocky/2006

Flag catcher Temuulen Tumurbat of Denver celebrates her team's heat victory at the 2006 festival. More than 45 amateur teams will be competing for this year's Dragon Cup, and another eight competitive squads will be racing for regional honors this weekend.

Photo by Jonathan D. Woods / The Rocky/2007

Wearing a traditional Hmong dress, Pada Lee of Arvada stands outside one of the Hmong booths at the dragon boat festival last July.

Photo by Ken Papaleo / The Rocky/2004

Spectators will have to find new vantage points to watch this year's festival, which moves from the west side of Sloan's Lake to the east.

Photo by Ken Papaleo / The Rocky/2003

Dina Kor (front) and Tean Ly (back) reach for the flag at the finish line at Sloan's Lake.

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The Dragon Boat Festival returns to its roots this weekend, moving across Sloan's Lake to the east shore where organizers first launched the event in 2001. But things will hardly look the same - not when, over the years, the festival has added dozens of teams, tens of thousands of spectators, the chance to quaff beer while you watch and a competitive division to crown the best dragon boat racers in the region. That competitive division and increasing crowds prompted the move back east after six years on the lake's west shore. Organizers needed a larger part of the lake (the course for the American Dragon Boat Association Competitive Regional Races is twice as long as the amateur course) and more room to move inside the park to accommodate swelling crowds (organizers expect 120,000 for the eighth annual festival - a leap of more than 100,000 since it debuted). With a new location, new races and a boatload of new features, we offer 10 tips to get the most of this weekend's Dragon Boat Festival:

Find the jetty - A new site poses new problems for old fans: Where's the best place to watch the races? Executive Director Alisa Zimmerman says to grab a spot on the shore directly across from the jetty that pokes out east of the boat docks and marks the finish line. "You'll see the boats coming right at you," she says. "It's like a spot on the 50-yard line."

Get serious on Sunday - If you're the sort of fan that skips the regular season and tunes in only once the playoffs have started, then bypass all the preliminary rounds on Saturday and set your sights on Sunday. "If you're looking to see the best of the best, probably Sunday between 3 and 5 is when we'll get down to it," Zimmerman says.

Eat up the atmosphere - Yes, you can buy bratwursts, gyros, pizza and snow cones. But you're at a Dragon Boat Festival. Zimmerman suggests the Vietnamese iced coffee and the mango shrimp salad. Or, better yet, the sticky rice wrapped in bamboo. That, after all, is what legend says the peasants fed the fish 2,000 years ago while dragon boats raced back and forth trying to find the drowned poet Qu Yuan - thus creating the dragon boat festival as we know it today.

Bring your ID - Remember three years ago when Denver rejected a bid to make beer sales legal in city parks, but gave the go-ahead to sell suds at Sloan's? Here's why. The Coors Beer Garden this year will be set on the eastern bank amid a bunch of mature trees. "If you had to sit anywhere and view the races, this would be the best," Zimmerman says. "You'll be sitting among a bunch of beautiful trees, with a view of the mountains. You can sit out there all day."

Forget parking near the lake - The choice is yours: Circle Sloan's in 90-degree heat looking for a spot while the gas gauge plummets, or park at Invesco Field at Mile High, where shuttles will run every 15 minutes. Better yet, the same shuttles will be swinging by the light-rail stop east of the stadium. "We're the only festival that I'm aware of that offers air-conditioned shuttles," Zimmerman says.

Learn about what you're watching - For $20 you can enroll in Dragon Boat 101: Dragon Boat Racing for Beginners. They'll give you a life vest, a paddle, some instruction and a spot in a boat to get a feel for what it's like. The only catch: You must be 18 or older, although anyone 13 to 17 can take the class if they're accompanied by an adult. The classes are from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Remember there's more than just drumming - If you love primal rhythms, you've come to the right place; they'll be beating the drums to keep time aboard the boats and Denver Taiko will take the stage, as usual (6 p.m. Sunday). But the festival also has Wendy Woo (1:30 Saturday), Bollywood dancers (5:30 Sunday) and even an entire stage devoted to hip-hop and break-dancing.

Watch the dragon - Our local leaders will all take turns pontificating at the podium Saturday morning, but that sort of pomp gets trumped by the dragon dance that leads up to it. "If anyone were to arrive at 10, they'll hear the drums and the dragon dance start to rumble and awaken," says Zimmerman. "It sets the tone for the whole festival." The 75-foot dragon will wend its way through the crowd, gathering followers like a pied piper and leading them to the stage for the opening ceremony. Monks from San Francisco will then bless all the boats.

Stock up on kimonos - Among the vendors hawking everything from Tibetan crafts and jewelry to shirts with sumo wrestlers on them, one company will be selling traditional Japanese kimonos from the 1900s to the 1970s. You won't find those at the People's Fair.

Cool off - This year organizers have included a misting station, which might remind locals of a time long ago when something called "rain" used to fall from the sky. This is as wet as you can get, though, since swimming in the lake is not allowed.

Dragon Boat Festival

* When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

* Where: Sloan's Lake

* Information: cdbf.org

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