The 12th Annual Pagan Pride Raleigh Festival held this weekend at the NC State Fairgrounds was a great success. In spite of a rainy start on Sunday, we had our largest attendance, yet, with 2,870 attendees across both days. And we didn't just have more visitors; those visitors found more vendors, music, workshops and local groups than ever before. Also, in addition to the food and blood drives we always have, this year we added pet adoptions. I don't have final numbers on any of the charitable activities, but I am sure we collected more food than last year, because we filled more pallets. I'll publish the final numbers as they come in from the Food Bank of Central & Eastern NC, the American Red Cross, and the Wake County Animal Center.

So, a special thanks to all the visitors, vendors, volunteers, local groups, workshop leaders, sponsors and performers that made this all happen.

Be sure to mark your calendar for next year's festival, as always, the third weekend in September. That is September 21st and 22nd, 2013. It will be our 13th annual event, so let's make it special.

We are all going to take a few weeks to relax now, but planning for 2013 is already well underway, with 38 vendors already lined up and loose commitments for many of the performers we had this year. If you would like to get involved in creating next year's festival, come to our 2012 Wrapup/2013 Planning Meeting on October 14th at 2pm in Gaia's Gardens in Raleigh, NC. Please contact us for details and to RSVP.