The Urban Core Editorial: Springfield Needs a Festival
03/20/08 • Posted in: News, Springfield by Joey Marchy 10 Comments »
Capitol Hill Block Party, photo: Peter Kearns
I’m happy to say I am the first (I think) editorial contributor to The Urban Core blog. That means I’m on the editorial board now. Whoop!
Head over there and read my post Springfield Needs a Festival. It’s got pictures and everything!
What I’d like to see is more along the lines of a music festival, something like SXSW, but divided by 10. You know, much smaller. I’m thinking a one day thing. It doesn’t have to be big, and probably shouldn’t be to get started.
Quoted from the post Springfield Needs a Festival.
phillip, dunn, and me are working on one to raise money and the springfield community garden and for food not bombs. it’s still in the works but it is going to be held in the pearl parking lot and inside the pearl. were thinking at the end of april. i’d be more specific but i’m in a hurry and have to go to work.
Let me know if you want some free ad space on Urban Jacksonville. I’d be down for promoting it anyway I can. Also let me know if you need some sponsors or something.
Well, had there been more support, Talleyrand could have been that festival: cool bands, fall weather, on the river– all great. But crowd support/ticket buyers were not there.
I’d love to see some good bands swing through J’ville again, Totally missing the days of Einstein’s and Milk Bar. Confederate Park would be a great spot for a festival!
We definitely need some sort of traditional, recognizable entertainement event in Springfield. I thought SPAR (or whomever) was on to a good thing last year when it tried to coordinate different musical events at different venues throughout the day as part of the heritage event. Not sure how or why it flopped so bad (although I have my suspicions).
(As an aside, I think there was another editorial contributor to The Urban Core ahead of you.)
Colony, you are right! You beat me to number one. Second! Ha ha. So what are your thoughts on why Heritage Days failed?
There’s no way I’m going to air such grievances
as my dismay over the tragedy that was the Heritage
Days on a public forum. Suffice it to say, though, that
I smelled trouble while sitting through (what
I think was) the second planning meeting. Let’s just say
that the idea of holding a celebration of the
Confederate Army in Confederate Park and having a
parade marching OUT of Springfield instead INTO
Springfield made me queasy and doubtful. And that’s all
I’ll say on the matter in writing.
In fairness Colony, both of those ideas didnt end up happening, so to judge the event on them is a little unfair. There were aspect of the event that were a success and aspects the didnt work out so well.
For example, I was part of organizing the Throwback Baseball, and I thought it came off pretty well. I also thought it was cool having the Symphony in the park. I would love to see the event redone, but retooled in some ways, as there were things that clearly didnt work.
The thing about bad ideas is, you have to have them out there to know how good the good ideas are. This is of course just my humble point of view.
I agree, sort of. The parade, in my opinion, still headed in the wrong direction, it just didn’t go all the way to Jackson like originally planned. Other concerns include the sale, or lack thereof, of home tour tickets. But, yes, I’ll admit that there were some highlights with the lowlights.
Anyway, this could be debated ad nauseum.
I agree that there was some good out of the event. But I think this whole string started with the idea of getting some sort of new festival in Springfield. The question would be how to reconcile the old guard with the new, the preservationists with the revitalizationsists. Solve that problem, and this neighborhood could have the best festival in town.
I agree with you 100%. I think that blogs like Joeys are helping make what you and I both want reality. There is a lot of cool counter culture stuff starting to happen in the neighborhood, with the community garden(I am not a big fan of the food hand outs, but thats a whole different discussion), the record store, the bike polo, and ally races, and the various night life places like Shanty, The Pearl, and 9th and Main. I see all of this as positive movement that can be built upon.