Seafair announces royal court, kicks off 2013 festival

SEATTLE — Seafair, Seattle's favorite summertime tradition, kicked off Friday with the announcement of its 2013 royal court.

At the kickoff event at Westlake Park, Captain of Summer and former hydroplane driver Chip Hanauer announced that co-founder of Sub Pop records, Jonathan Poneman, would be this year’s King Neptune, and Jennifer Roth, a movie producer and advocate of the local film industry,  was crowned Queen Alcyone.

In one of their first acts as royals, the new king and queen knighted WARM 106.9 FM morning host Mark Christopher as the Duke of Dialogue, Ducks and Doubloons.

The kickoff also featured a special performance by the 5^th Avenue Theatre's Pirates of Penzance, who sang and roved through the crowd.

The theme of the festival this year is "Captain of Summer," a nod to Seafair's original purpose of promoting Seattle as the boating capitol of the world. For eight weeks each summer, the festival includes more than 75 events and reaches nearly two million people. Seafair has been a Seattle tradition for more than 64 years.

Also a Seattle tradition is the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon and Half Marathon, which will be held at 7 a.m. Saturday.

This event includes over 19,000 participants running a marathon or half marathon, plus live bands and cheer teams are stationed every mile on course to keep up the beat.

KIRO 7 is your Seafair station and will broadcast the Albert Lee Cup and Boeing Air show August 4 live on KIRO TV, kirotv.com and the free KIRO 7 iPad app, available at this link.

Find all your favorite events as well as photos and video in our Seafair section.

KIRO