PROVIDENCE — The Democratic nominee for mayor, a state representative, would like PVDFest to be held in the summer.

He said so on WPRI's Newsmakers, in the episode dated Friday, September 18. PVDFest opened downtown at five o'clock that afternoon. It ran to ten, resumed at noon on Saturday and ran to ten again, in Kennedy Plaza, Burnside Park, the rink and the streets around City Hall. WPRI published the wish on Friday night, after the festival's first day had closed.

The wish, as reported, is that the festival be moved back to one of the summer months, because it used to be held in June. It did. PVDFest began in June of 2015 under the previous mayor and, pandemic years aside, stayed there through 2022. In 2023 the current mayor moved it to September and to the park by the pedestrian bridge, and gave a reason: "in consultation with the hospitality industry, it was identified after Labor Day, there's a falloff, where there aren't as many public events, hotel rooms aren't as full, restaurants are not as full. There's this lull." The festival was placed in the lull. In 2024 it came back downtown. The month stayed.

The record therefore holds two statements on when the festival should be. One is from the man who runs it, made in 2023, with a reason attached. The other is from the man who would like to run it, made on the festival's opening day, with the reason that it used to be otherwise.

Nothing has moved. The nominee is a nominee. The general election is in November; a mayor elected then takes office in January; the next PVDFest is next September unless someone says a different month, which someone has now done. The earliest festival the nominee could move is the one after the one that opened that evening.

The festival's producers — the city's Department of Art, Culture and Tourism and FirstWorks — did not respond to the wish, because nobody put it to them, because it was a wish.

Saying Things will continue to report on people who say things, and notes that this too is a thing said.