BREMERTON — Thousands of people swarmed to the Bremerton Marina over Labor Day weekend to celebrate the holiday at the annual Blackberry Festival.

Sept. 3-5 marked the 27th annual Blackberry Festival in downtown Bremerton, featuring airplane flyovers, musical acts, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) displays and, of course, a wide variety of food, blackberry-themed and otherwise.

“Blackberry shortcakes are bomb,” festival first-timer Brandon Kelley said.

He attended with Brittany Hattrich Sept. 4, who has attended the past few years.

“I love blackberries,” Hattrich said about why she returns to the event.

Laura San Nicolas, also a first-time attendee, was at the festival with her family.

“My mom lives here in Bremerton,” San Nicolas said, “so she told us about the festival. Since we have two small ones, we decided to come out and see what it’s all about.”

San Nicolas and her family moved to the Bremerton area about two months ago from Virginia. In their first half hour at the festival, they naturally tried the slugs.

“It was great,” she said. “It was a big donut filled with blackberry filling, and it was good.”

She said they were looking forward to checking out the rest of the many different food vendors at the festival throughout the rest of their visit.

Carol Atkinson, director of the Bremerton Rotary Foundation, the festival sponsor, said in advance of the festival that no two food vendors would be the same.

“We have one of a kind foods,” she said.

Atkinson also said that they expected people from all over to attend the festival — in the past, she said people have even planned their vacation around the festival.

Haley Mounsey, Amy Bach and their families, all from Tacoma, attended the festival.

“It’s actually a lot of fun, and it’s a lot more lively than I thought it was going to be,” Bach said.

Atkinson said yearly attendance is somewhere around 25,000 people — exact numbers aren’t possible, she said, because the festival is free.

One family is in attendance every year, though.

“It’s tradition,” Jennifer Huserick said. “My family comes every year for my birthday.”

Why? Because “we love blackberry anything, that’s the big thing,” Huserick said. “And also just getting to hang out and be outside.”

Also at the festival were six STEM booths featuring practical demonstrations of things like Newtonian physics and robots. Those attending also enjoyed musical performances, magic shows, arts and crafts vendors, face painting, Ronald McDonald and other things that added up to a successful entry in the long tradition of Bremerton Blackberry Festivals.

See more photos at www.bremertonpatriot.com.