HB Fiesta Wizard is vanishing
by Kevin Cody Mike Bell, the wizard behind the Hermosa Beach Labor Day, and Memorial Day Weekend Fiestas for the past three decades, announced his retirement as the fiestas’ manager this week. “It’s time to spend more time with my family,” Bell said. “But I wanted to make sure we brought the event back to its pre-pandemic numbers before passing the torch. And we did that with this past Memorial Day Fiesta,” he said. “The Fiesta is now in very capable hands with Chamber Director Jessica Accamando at the helm.” Bell started with Hermosa Fiestas as its music sound engineer in 1993. He became the fiestas’ manager in 2005. Under his guidance, the Labor Day and Memorial Day Weekend Fiestas grew to become the largest chamber of commerce street fairs in California, featuring over 200 arts, and crafts vendors, and over 100,000 weekend visitors. (The Hermosa Beach Chamber recently announced it will no longer produce the Labor Day weekend fiesta, which draws smaller crowds than the Memorial Day weekend fiesta.) Bell said he wanted his fiestas to be like a weekend at Disneyland. “We offered carnival rides for kids, craft booths where the mom could shop, and a beer garden for dad. At the end…
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