— Daily Freeman-Journal photo by  Chris Anderson Maria Farwell, right, of Cloud9 Cotton Candy, twirls some of the fluffy confection onto a stick for a child during JunqueFest in downtown Webster City Friday.

The streets of Webster City were filled with crowds Friday, Saturday and Sunday as JunqueFest took over the majority of downtown.

JunqueFest attracts thousands of people looking for antiques, repurposed goods, yard decorations, or maybe just something to eat or drink.

Vendors come from all across Iowa to share their products during the three-day event.

One of these vendors is Daven Glaspie, a welder who lives in Humboldt but who was born and raised in Webster City.

A welder by day, Glaspie also enjoys pursuing a more creative form of welding. For the past 3 years, he’s been welding pieces of art out of scrap metal.

To draw in more customers, Glaspie actually welded pieces under his tent right on Des Moines Street. One piece he recently created was a wiener-dog out of an old coil spring, which Glaspie says he sold before he even finished working on it.

“They get to see the art being created, that’s the biggest thing,” Glaspie said.

The idea to create art in front of people actually came from other people saying “I could do that” when seeing Glaspie’s art. The idea to weld in front of customers was away for Glaspie to prove his skill and sell more art.

Ironically, Glaspie got into doing welded art by looking on Pintrest and thinking to himself, “I could do that.”

Glaspie says most of his art ranges from $20-$100 depending on the size. Some larger pieces he’s working on, like a 15-foot-high sunflower, he plans on selling for up to $500. But to Glaspie, the best part of JunqueFest isn’t the money, it’s the people.

“Everybody’s got a story,” Glaspie said, “It’s really fun to get to talk to people,”.

JunqueFest can be a great place to find pieces of re-purposed pieces of metal turned into art or even another use. Another vendor, Paul Assing who owns Hacsaw Forge and Design with his wife, is giving new life to old metal objects.

At his tent, he has handmade metal wrenches turned into knives, and decorative pieces made out of horseshoes, all of which he handcrafts himself.

Assing also enjoyed getting to meet all of the people and talk with them.

Jacob Rowley, owner of the Iron Garden, says the most unique thing about JunqueFest is the customers. Rowley, who comes from Marshalltown, has been to JunqueFest for the past three years and says it is one of his favorite places to sell products.

“We do about 40 shows a year but I’d put JunqueFest in my top five,” Rowley said.

Rowley feels that for the relatively small size of the event, JunqueFest always results in an exceptional sales for his company. In fact, most vendors at JunqueFest seemed to share this sentiment.

“This event pulls 10,000 people maybe, but we’ll sell just as much as an event that pulls 70,000,” Rowley said.

The Iron Garden sells yard decorations and signs, they also do business through Hy-Vee and other chains across Iowa. Despite their relative size compared to other vendors, Rowley says the great people in Webster City keep him coming back year after year.

“It’s a wonderful event, the promoters here are great,” Rowley said.

For people looking for something to eat while they browse the various tents, JunqueFest has a variety of food choices. One of these is The Magic Bus, a family owned wood-fired pizza company out of Madrid, Iowa.

The Magic Bus is retrofitted school bus with kitchen amenities and a wood fire pizza oven. The company was started by Mark Willson and his brother Matt, who are originally from Webster City.

“We decided we were tired of paying rent and decided to go mobile,” Willson said.

The Magic Bus was very busy during JunqueFest. Willson credits fresh ingredients with the popularity of their food.

“It’s kind of what sells our stuff, that’s why it’s better than everyone elses. Dough is made fresh each night before we put it in the oven,” Willson said.

Cloud 9 Cotton Candy owned by Kevin and Maria Farwell from Webster City, were busy selling the fluffy confections.

“This is our fourth year of doing this, we’ve done this since the beginning,” Kevin Farwell said.

“It’s probably because of the diversity of people that are drawn in,” Farwell said as he made cotton candy. “And the smell, you can’t beat the smell.”