NORWAY — Main Street will be closed for six hours Saturday to accommodate exhibitors and visitors to the 43rd annual Norway Arts Festival.

“We’ve had very few calls about it,” said Aranka Matolcsy, visual arts director for the festival, speaking about the closure. She said the festival generally draws between 3,000 and 4,000 people.

Matolcsy said 1,500 fliers with information about the event and the street closure have been distributed.

“We expect it to go quite well,” she said of the festival, which will feature more than 100 artists at the three-day festival. It is sponsored by the Norway Downtown and the Western Maine Art Group on Main Street from Lynn Street/Greenleaf Avenue to Whitman Street and Pikes Hill.

The move to shut down that portion of Main Street, a state road, has been under discussion for the past several years for safety reasons, but it was not until this year that the town was able to get an answer from the state Department of Transportation.

State officials refused to shut down the road but advised the town that it could exercise its police powers to reroute traffic in response to a local situation or event as long as it maintains a minimal disruption for the volume and size of traffic that normally uses routes 117 and 118 in the summer.

The move was being proposed by the committee that oversees the festival because of the increasing concern about the safety of people who must walk into the street to get around the art displays on the sidewalk.

The festival features the annual Sidewalk Art Show, the second largest in the state, and a full day of performances along the street. In addition to the sidewalk sale, the free event includes music, drumming, puppets, juggling, dance and other performances, beginning Thursday evening with a lecture at Norway Memorial Library.

Matolcsy said that if it rains, the arts festival will be moved to Sunday. Participants can find out that information by calling performance Arts Director Rijah Newell at 207-890-0545 or Matolcsy at 303-579-9033 to hear a voice message.

Matolcsy said the biggest challenges will be for the exhibitors.

“This is the first time in 42 years they’ve set up in a different way,” Matolcsy said. She will have a large group of volunteers on hand to assist people. The exhibitors will be set up on the parking spaces in the street allowing full pedestrian access to the sidewalks and the middle of the street.

More information, visit http://norwayartsfestival.org.

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NORWAY — The Norway Triathlon on Saturday will require some closures at Lake Pennesseewassee, according to Recreation Director Debra Partridge.

Partridge said the main parking area for the Lake Pennesseewassee Park will be closed at 5:30 p.m. Friday so volunteers can set up the transition area. Parking will still be available at the boat landing.

The triathlon starts at 8 a.m. Saturday with the two-thirds of a mile swim, followed by the 11.6 mile bike run that goes up the Greenwood Road and up Ashton Road.

Lake Pennesseewassee Park will be closed Saturday morning until 11:30 a.m. or until the end of the event. People wishing to put boats in or out of the lake may use the Norway Lake Marina landing.