by Debbi | Mar 15, 2007 | St. Patrick's Day
Awhile back we had a question over to the right asking which Sandbar float was the best one ever. There were six choices:
- 2001’s Egyptian Pyramids
- 2002’s Pirate Ship
- 2003’s Love Shack
- 2004’s Love Boat
- 2005’s Grease Car
- 2006’s Wedding Cake
I was sure that either the Love Boat or the Grease car would win this one. After all, they’re my two favorites. But whoever reads this blog apparently disagrees. The Love Shack float got the most votes, by far. 
The Love Shack was a fun float. The actual float didn’t have a lot to it- we built a wooden "shack" at the back of the trailer and painted it bright colors with some graffiti on it. Dave put a metal bar down the middle of the trailer for the float riders to hold onto, and we had a couple of giant palm trees on the corners of the trailer. Other than that, there wasn’t a lot of structure to the float.
But, oh…the costumes. Everyone was dressed in their 60’s best. The girls all wore white go-go boots and short dresses, some even with sequins! We had dresses from vintage stores and some that were handmade especially for the float. Lots of bright colors and bouffant hair. Even the guys got into the theme with leisure suits.
And of course the music- we had a great dance to "Love Shack" that Peach choreographed. Who wouldn’t be happy listening to that? We bought a B-52’s music video to try to match our moves to the original song.
This was the first year that we didn’t win the Grand Prize Traveling Trophy from the parade judges. We thought it might have something to do with the fact that one of our giant palm trees decided to fall off the float and take out the crowd, right as we passed the judge’s table. The Sandbar had won the trophy for several years in a row, and finally other groups were starting to step up and put together really great floats. We’re glad for that, because it just makes the parade better all the way around. And we don’t do it for the trophy anyway- we have so much fun building a float, getting dressed up, and dancing our way down Mass Street that we’d make our own parade if we had to.
So, there you have it- the float that you, whoever you are, chose as the best.
by Debbi | Feb 25, 2007 | St. Patrick's Day
You probably know that all of us at the Sandbar are big supporters of the Lawrence St. Patrick’s Day Parade. It’s one of our biggest and most popular events of the year- building our annual float and participating in the parade. But, there is a lot more to the parade than just the parade.
The St. Patrick’s Day Parade and all of it’s other activities is actually a huge fundraiser for local children’s charities. Since 1988, when the parade began, more than $385,000 has been raised for children’s charities such as the Boys and Girls Club, Crown Casting Club, the Ballard Center, and more.
The festivities include the St. Patrick’s Day Queen Volunteer program, t-shirts, a live and silent auction, dart tournament, pub quiz, and the Shamrock Shuffle 5k run/walk. These activities start happening around the end of February and take place up until St. Patrick’s Day.
The Sandbar is always a sponsor of the annual t-shirts and donates items to the auction. We also put together at least one team for the pub quiz tournament, which takes place tonight. Our friend Scotty Mac is the coordinator of the pub quiz event and we always have lots of fun not winning this event!
The live auction will be held on Saturday, March 3, at Liberty Hall beginning at 6 p.m. There are lots of great items to bid on- autographed items by the KU basketball team, George Brett, and the KC Wizards soccer team; golf packages, NASCAR tickets, and more. Not everything is a big ticket item however- there are lots of smaller things in the silent auction.
Come out to the 23rd Street Brewery tonight to have a beer and cheer on the Sandbar’s trivia teams!
by Debbi | Feb 8, 2007 | St. Patrick's Day
Drum roll, please……
We’ve decided on our theme for the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day Parade!!
But we can’t announce it to the public yet. We’re still working out the details- the costumes, the music, the dances, and the float itself. But I promise you, this will be a good one!! If you’ve ever seen our floats before you know that we spare no time or expense in our neverending quest for a fun time!
We’ll make our big announcement soon so keep reading!
by Debbi | Jan 22, 2007 | St. Patrick's Day
Our favorite holiday is fast approaching, and we need your help.
The Lawrence St. Patrick’s Day Parade is a long-standing tradition downtown, and it’s also become a tradition for The Sandbar. Every year our float gets bigger and better as we compete with ourselves to see what we can do next. It has to be big, it has to be impressive, it has to be challenging for us to build, and it has to be something the crowd will love to see. And of course there has to be a song we can fit to the float theme, because there’s always dancing on the Sandbar float!
What would the world like to see?
We go through this every year. As soon as the parade is over, we all start talking about the next one. Everyone has a million ideas and then, as time goes by, they’re all forgotten because none of us think to write them down. In January, we always find ourselves saying, "well it’s time to start thinking about float ideas," and then bam! it’s time to start building something and we’re running around like crazy people!
Here are some of our favorites from the past.
In 2001, the parade committee still developed a theme for the parade, and float entries were encouraged to follow the theme as closely as possible. I don’t remember what the theme even was, but we had nothing even close. Instead, we built an Egyptian themed float complete with gold glittery pyramids, Cleopatras, and a giant papier-mache Egyptian mask thing, courtesy of Justin and Michelle. We made the float fit the theme by using a banner that said "Everyone’s a little Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!"
2004 brought the Love Boat sailing down Massachusetts Street. It was truly a vision in white. By this time the parade committee had abandoned the idea of a parade theme and floats could be just about anything. The Love Boat was all Peach’s idea, and initially had some resistance, but it turned out to be a fabulous float and loads of fun.
And one more for you…my personal favorite, the hot rod car from Grease that we did in 2005. A giant car tilted up on the trailer…this one took some creativity. But our chief builder Dave and his helpers did an excellent job. A funny note to add on this one…there was a real car driving in the parade that day that our car was an exact replica of- we went to check it out and take pictures, but for some reason the owners didn’t seem as amused as we did.
Well, that’s it for a short trip down memory lane. As the big day approaches, we’ll share lots more of our favorite photos, stories, memories and maybe even video, if I have time to figure out how to upload to YouTube.
We have a new Random Question over to the right, be sure to vote on your favorite Sandbar float! And if you have ideas for a new float, send them our way!
This was the first year that we didn’t win the Grand Prize Traveling Trophy from the parade judges. We thought it might have something to do with the fact that one of our giant palm trees decided to fall off the float and take out the crowd, right as we passed the judge’s table. The Sandbar had won the trophy for several years in a row, and finally other groups were starting to step up and put together really great floats. We’re glad for that, because it just makes the parade better all the way around. And we don’t do it for the trophy anyway- we have so much fun building a float, getting dressed up, and dancing our way down Mass Street that we’d make our own parade if we had to. 
