NORWAY – The annual Summer Festival was spared all but a brief flash of rain Saturday, making the event a success.

“We had about 10 minutes where there was a really heavy downpour,” Brittany Stevens of the Norway Downtown Revitalization Group said as things drew to a close with the 32nd Annual Norway Sidewalk Art Show in the afternoon. A few artists were forced to leave when their work was damaged by the rain, she said, but most of the 85 or so artists and artisans remained.

Stevens said she expected the final count on the Summer Festival crowd to be about the same as last year’s, close to 2,000.

Some vendors said Saturday’s turnout was solid, but sales were down.

“It’s a great show, we do very well here,” said Joaquin Mills of Hotcopper Garden Art. Mills is based in Canton and travels throughout the state for art shows during the year. He and his wife, Crystal Mills, have had a spot at the Norway festival since 2002.

Lots of people passed by Saturday, Mills said, but people weren’t buying as much as they have in the past. This has been true at most art shows he has attended this year, he said.

Susan Peterson of Bath was in front of the Norway Savings Bank with her stand of hand-made jewelry.

“I think sales are down a little bit from the first year,” she said, noting that 2003 marked her first appearance in the art show. “But I think that’s just the gas prices.”

Neither Mills nor Peterson could remember how they had first heard of the show. Nor could Holly Galante of Yard Garb, who had traveled from Falmouth to attend for her second year.

“It’s a very friendly atmosphere, that’s why we’re back” Galante said. She was also pleased with the crowd, and said her lawn art – animal and bird-like shapes fashioned from recycled items like lawnmower parts and old shovels – was doing well.

But art wasn’t the only thing happening in Norway on Saturday. The music of performers such as Nathan Towne and Bill Shimamura, and the Mellie Dunham Fiddle Jam, filled the town’s streets during the day; poets read from the porch of the Memorial Library; and there was even a duck race from the Pennessewassee Dam.

U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud made an appearance on Main Street to mark the grand opening of the Oxford County Democratic headquarters. And dancers from Art Moves Dance Studio also performed at Norway Town Hall.

Good friends Nancy Haskell of Augusta and Betty Cullinan of Norway were walking along Main Street as several artists closed shop Saturday afternoon. Haskell visits Cullinan every year during the Summer Festival, she said. They are old friends who met when their husbands were in business together in the 1980s, and the festival gives the pair an excuse to get together.

Both liked the addition of crafts people such as potters to this year’s art show, finding that the change made things more interesting. But either way, Haskell said, “This is a must in our summer.”