"It's good to see people still out and enjoying it even though the weather isn't too good," he said. "I thought it'd still be good to bring the kids down and have a look."
Arts Festival associate director Claire Mabey said the weekend's events had gone "amazingly well".
"Despite the rain we all had a fantastic day with incredible numbers throughout our venues, events and sites.
"The family day was huge with over 800 people throughout the day. The markets had a great day despite the rain."
The Rogue Stage, the Arboria, Mad Hatter's Tea Party, The Incubator's Wonderland at Edgewater Fan and Whales were all big hits.
"Binge Culture Collective did their performance Whales. Local people were trained up by the company to perform a whale stranding. It's a really beautiful thing. We had this huge crowd of people that were taught how to refloat the whales. The crowd was really happy with their efforts."
Ms Mabey said all of the weekend's ticketed events had sold out and, while some tickets for today's events were still left people would need to get in fast.
A show by country singer Tami Neilson was almost sold out and there were still some tickets left for NZTrio and Motu :: Oilean, a collaboration between four traditional Irish musicians and Kiwi platinum-selling trio Trinity Roots.
Ms Mabey said she was "really, really, really pleased" with the festival so far.
"Attendance has been high, it has a great vibe and we've had great feedback from audiences.
"We're all pretty happy."
The Dry Dock Cafe owner Sandra Johnson, which hosted the Mad Hatter's Tea Party to celebrate 150 years of Alice in Wonderland, said the day was "incredible".
"It was better than Jazz Festival," she said. "The weather wasn't great but it didn't stop anyone. It was an amazing event."
She said the cafe was packed for at lest four hours. "We need to have more of these things. We need to have more planned events."
