The Covered Bridge Celebration was in full swing Friday when all of the arts and crafts vendors, food vendors and Kid’s Island participants were set up and ready for visitors.

These vendors, along with entertainment and a variety of activities on Saturday, will carry out the festival until its conclusion on Saturday night.

“Everything has been going really well,” Chamber of Commerce Director Tonya Stevens said. “All of the vendors are here and are checked in. We have a great selection of items and a great variety of things to be found here.”

Around 30 arts and crafts vendors signed up to be a part of the Covered Bridge Celebration. Vendors offered products ranging from handmade cloth items, crochet and knit items, jewelry, decorative pieces, soaps, woodcarved items and others.

Marge Powers was one of those vendors set up at the festival. She was a first-timer who came to the Covered Bridge Celebration to sell her painted gourd creations, including bird houses, holiday figures for all seasons and gourd manger scenes.

“I thought I’d give it a try,” Powers said. “I usually do some of the other festivals and figured I’d see how this goes.”

Several other booths were new to the festival, including Floating Leaf, a booth which sold a variety or hanging chairs, and a booth specializing in items made from hemp. Outside of this booth, Emileah and Bryson Winchester played with one of the rather large hula hoops for sale from the business.

“This is a big hula hoop,” Emileah said. “It takes two people to get it going.”

Over in Kid’s Island, the young and the young at heart could test their luck at skill games, take a turn on a mechanical bull or enjoy some time on the inflatable attractions.

Anna Campbell, Bristol, rode on the bull from Governor Possum’s Rodeo while her mother and younger brother watched.

“That was fun,” she said after she was finished. “It was a lot harder than it looked.”

After spending some time shopping in the booths, and playing on Kid’s Island, festival goers could walk the few short steps to the food court to get their fill on a variety of festival foods. Over in the food court, vendors were selling Amish donuts, funnel cakes, deep fried oreos, Japanese meals, turkey legs, chicken on a stick and many other forms of deep-fried deliciousness. If something cool was what visitors wanted, lemonade, Italian ice and shaved ice were the specialties of some other booths.

John Kelly has been coming to the Covered Bridge Celebration for seven years with his booth that specializes in funnel cakes and deep fried oreos. Customers can get their funnel cakes plain or with a powdered sugar coating or even strawberries.

“I just like coming here,” Kelly said as he fried up a funnel cake. “I like doing this and the people are great.”

On the other side of the food court, Roman Kauffman was hand rolling donuts for Auntie Ruth’s. Auntie Ruth’s donuts have gained a large following in the region and are some of the most sought after treats at festivals.

“These are ‘the donuts’,” Kauffman said.

Covered Bridge Celebration festivities continue Saturday with all the vendors and entertainment later in the day.

Saturday is Rock Night and features headliner Justin Teseniar, who will perform covers of both current and classic rock music. Teseniar will play starting at 9 p.m. Other entertainment for the day will start with Jeff Sharpe & Friends at 3:30 p.m. The Bullseye Band will play at 5 p.m. followed by Acoustifried at 6:10 p.m. The Watts Dance Studio dancers will show off their moves at 7:10 p.m. and Blue Carpet Corner will play at 7:40 p.m.

The arts and crafts vendors, Kid’s Island vendors and food vendor will arrive on Friday and stay through the end of the festival.

Several events are scheduled for Saturday morning. Events that are planned for later in the day include the weekly Carter County Car Club Cruise-In will continue as normal, starting at 5 p.m. in downtown Elizabethton. The Community Yard Sale will be held from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on E Street. In the case of rain, the yard sale will be held 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Elizabethton Boys and Girls Club.

For more information, call the Chamber of Commerce at 547-3850. Applications are also available online at www.elizabethtonchamber.com