This show is May 25th at The Pearl in Springfield. Anybody have a link for Fruit Machine?
At the Springfield Area Merchants Business Association meeting last night Ian Ranne announced something I’ve been hinting at for a while: we are planning a music festival for Saturday August 2nd in Springfield called Summertime in the City 08. Before I write anymore here are the details as we know them:
When
Saturday August 2nd, 2008 from 2:00pm to 11:00pm
Where
Springfield Historic District between 1st and 9th streets on Main
What
Three music venues hosting national and local acts. We plan on having a community retail component, think Bizarre Market or Springfield Crap Fair. We will have an environmental awareness / sustainability component, much like last year’s Summertime in the City 07. There’s plenty more planned, I just don’t have any details on those items.
The Venues
I hope this announcement won’t overshadow the other Springfield Music festival announced yesterday. It’s pretty rad, I write a post a few weeks ago called Springfield Needs a Festival, and now it’s happening.
The Inspiration
Listening to Ian talk tonight at the SAMBA meeting I can see how we fell in to this together. We are both passionate about not waiting for Jacksonville to be a cool, fun place. It is to an extent, but it’s heavily dependent on taking an active role and doing it yourself.
I am living now and I want Jacksonville to be fun now. Not 2 or 3 years from now. I realized a few years ago of you want to make something of this city, it’s relatively easy. You just need to come up with an idea and make it happen.
The Players
Tony is playing the silent partner and will be helping with logistics and connections. He’s very busy adjusting to a new job and warned us he won’t be heavily involved.
Daniel convinced Petra Management to let us use their empty lots along Main Street. This is huge for the festival and for Petra. It will give us extra room to put bouncy tents, snow cone machines, soccer games, bike polo, etc.
It also shows an unprecedented degree of community involvement from Petra Management. We are very happy to be working with them. Daniel and I are meeting with their rep Richard Trendel tomorrow so I’ll have an update on this soon.
What can you do?
Send us ideas and let us know if you want to help and how you can help.
Capitol Hill Block Party, photo: Peter Kearns
This post first appeared as an editorial on The Urban Core blog. I am reprinting it here for archival purposes.
What do all these places have in common? Jacksonville Beach, Mandarin, St. John’s Town Center, San Marco, Southbank, Northbank, St. Augustine, Orange Park. They have a festival taking place in the coming months. I was looking at the festival issue of Entertaining You and I realized there is one glaring omission: Springfield.
I guess I can’t say there are no festivals in Springfield. There is Dog Days in the Park, Heritage Days, the Crap Fair and maybe one or two others I’m missing. But I’d like something different. 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. We can close off a block of Laura Street (I know this is possible, it’s been done before), get a couple of port-o-potties, some kegs of beer, a few local bands, a stage and go from there. It can’t be that hard right?
Of course there are other things we’ll need like:
Capitol Hill Block Party, photo: Peter Kearns
I’m sure there are quite a few logistics involved in doing this, but I know of two people who have organized something similar in Springfield and Riverside so it’s not impossbile. I’m using the Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle as inspiration. I think something like this will bring the community together and inspire people to create similar events in their own neighborhoods.
Most of all I want more fun things to do in Jacksonville.
Reporting from Springfield, this is Joey Marchy and I blog at urbanjacksonville.info. You can contact me there if you want to get down and organize or have ideas/input.
2 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.
10 Comments »Wilco at the Florida Theater August 6th at 8:00pm. Buy Tickets Online
