LORAIN — A little over 60,000 people attended the Lorain International Festival bazaar this weekend, according to bazaar coordinator Ralph Bruening.

The number was far below what he’d hoped — 85,000 to 90,000 — and he blamed that on the weather, particularly on Sunday, when he said attendance was only 9,000 to 10,000.

“Normally after the parade, the crowd just moves over here,” he said. This year, likely due to the stifling heat, that didn’t happen.

The heat was only broken up by brief rain showers and eventually a big thunderstorm about 5 p.m.

But rain, thunder and lightning couldn’t deter many of the festival-goers, who crowded into the beer tent or huddled under awnings until the worst had passed.

More photos below.

One of those hardy festival-goers was Honey Walorz, 90, from the Boston area. Walorz, who moved from Lorain more than 50 years ago, has come back for the festival each year for the past 28.

For each trip, she’s accompanied by a different assortment of family members. Eleven children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren accompanied her this year. Besides International Festival, she makes it a point to visit her parents’ graves.

When asked what they’d had to eat, family members responded in unison: “Everything!”

“Between yesterday and today, we have tried just about every booth out,” said Sue MacAllister, 57, of Plymouth, Mass., Walorz’s daughter.

“We definitely make it a point to go to the Hungarian booth because we are Hungarian,” added Sara MacAllister, 29, of Weymouth, Mass., Walorz’s granddaughter. “We make it a point to have the stuffed cabbage and the dumplings. It’s a treat because we don’t make it at home as much.”

For all those years Walorz has been coming to International Festival, Dave Zanoni, who moved to Florida, had been missing out. He made his first time back to the festival in nearly three decades count, though. He started a “Back to Lorain” effort in hopes of making this year’s festival a massive community reunion, and he estimates he convinced several thousand people to make the trip.

“Since a lot of people left Lorain, unfortunately, it’s a good chance to get everybody together, come on back to the great city, bring your family, meet up with old friends and just have a good time,” he said. “It seemed like a lot of people turned out, and I think they had a good time, because, I tell you what, I had a really good time, and my wife had a really good time.”

Zanoni said his week back in Lorain also included several impromptu reunion gatherings and his first tour of the Lorain lighthouse.

Lorain police Sgt. Mark Carpentiere said the festival went smoothly from his perspective.

“It’s gone really well,” he said. “We’ve had no major incidents. We’ve got a lot of officers working out here along with our patrol division and traffic division.”

He said there was one arrest for a “very minor” domestic violence incident and a couple alcohol-related problems that didn’t lead to any arrests.

A first-time effort to wrist-band everyone over 21 who wants to consume alcohol went well, according to Cathy Gabe of Communities that Care of Lorain County.

People embraced the concept, Gabe said, and at least 5,000 wristbands were handed out over the festival’s three days.

“What we’re hoping is this becomes the wave of the future for festivals in Lorain County that serve alcohol,” Gabe said. “If you go, this is just something you expect.”

Food sales reports varied depending on who you asked among the festival’s vendors.

At the Midway Oh-Boy booth, owner Dave Disbrow said this year’s festival was a big disappointment. He said he went through 21 boxes of 40 hamburger patties to make his famous Oh-Boy burgers, but he’d hoped to sell twice that. He blamed the economy and the weather.

The popular Hungarian booth reported running out of dinners by 8 p.m. Friday and by 3 p.m. Sunday had only stuffed cabbage left. They cut the cost of those from $2 to $1 for a cabbage roll or a dozen for $10, and moved the rest quickly.

At the Polish booth run by Kiedrowski’s Bakery, the top-sellers, as always were the snoogles, which are foot-long pastries. Booth workers didn’t have hard numbers, but estimated they gone through at least 200 or 300 dozen.

Christian Tabernacle Church sold 4,000 pastellilos at their Puerto Rican booth and went through 262 pounds of rice and 220 pounds of beans.

This year’s festival saw an expanded kids area, featuring nine inflatable “bouncy” attractions and “happy meals” for $3.

Nina Woolridge, Lorain International treasurer, said the idea is to get more families with kids to come to the festival and to stay longer once they’re there.

“Sometimes it’s hard to give a kid chicken paprikas or chicken on a stick or a gyro,” Woolridge explained. The “happy meals” consisted of a hot dog or chicken nuggets, potato chips, fruit snacks and a drink.

“Last year everyone was really happy about all the rides, and this year the cafe has really made people say, ‘Wow, this is really good,’ ” Woolridge said. “We had a guy come up here yesterday with four kids, and he was like ‘Wow, I can feed all four of my kids for $12? How good is that?’ ”

Woolridge said the kids cafe served 200 meals over the weekend, and 1,600 kids rode the rides.

Parade chairwoman Andrea Miceli called this year’s parade “one of the best we’ve hosted in years.”

Roy Church, president of spotlight industry Lorain County Community College, was grand marshal, and John Peters and Magda Koos, two pillars of the Lorain Hungarian community, were honorary grand marshals.

More than 1,000 people participated in the parade, which was about an hour and a half long. The Hungarian float took first place for nationality float, Key Bank won for business float, and Lorain County Community College was first for organization float.

The parade was also the first chance for the community to see the new Lorain High Titan marching band. The band practiced together for the first time Wednesday and is coming together nicely so far, according to band director Tim Sivik.

Bret Schuster, Lorain’s Ward 4 councilman and booth chairman for the festival bazaar, called this year’s festival “excellent.”

“Couldn’t say anything better,” he said. “This is one of the better years that we’ve had, and it has been absolutely marvelous.”

How was this year’s festival from the perspective of Zanoni, who hadn’t been to it in about 27 years?

“The food’s still the same, and it’s still hot and a great atmosphere and really nice people,” he said.