TV Santa Barbara’s Executive Director, Erik Davis, has been crowned the official King of the 2023 Summer Solstice Celebration. Davis will ride a custom throne in the 49th annual Solstice Parade, which will begin at noon on June 24th at the intersection of Ortega and Santa Barbara Streets. The parade will travel on Santa Barbara Street and end at the Solstice Festival at Alameda park. This year’s Festival theme is Roots and the celebration will take place Friday, Saturday & Sunday June 23 – 25, 2023.

“It is a great honor to be selected as the official King of Summer Solstice,” said Davis who has been the Executive Director of TV Santa Barbara since 2017 and who also served as El Presidente of Old Spanish Days Fiesta in 2020. “I can’t wait to participate in the parade and share in the joy that is this wonderful community festival!”

Since Davis arrived, TV Santa Barbara has been a partner with the Summer Solstice Celebration. In 2019 and 2022, the TVSB team covered and broadcast the parade, video below. In 2021, TV Santa Barbara produced an hour-long video program for Summer Solstice Celebration which was shown at the Arlington Theatre in lieu of an in-person parade. The program also aired on KEYT, Channel 3, and on TVSB’s community access channels 17 and 71. The film was a culmination of two months of taping around town and at the Creative Arts Workshop, which serves as the hub for the annual Summer Solstice celebration. This year, TV Santa Barbara will have a Video Story Booth for Summer Solstice at Alameda Park on Saturday from 2 pm – 6 pm.

TV Santa Barbara (TVSB) is a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization which operates two community access television channels, 17 and 71. TVSB’s mission is to empower people to make media that matters. TVSB does this by providing residents with the knowledge, resources, and tools to create their own original programming. TV Santa Barbara has served as the local media access center since 1975. www.tvsb.tv