Some thoughts about Danville’s Festival In The Park

Any event that’s lasted for 36 years has to be doing something right. Let’s look at some random thoughts about the Festival In The Park…

• I remember the first few Festival In The Park events quite fondly because I was involved in them through the Danville Public School system. Students submitted their artworks, middle and high-school bands performed quick concerts. Those traditions continue with the DPS music departments putting on concerts and the “Youth Art Gala”.
• You’d never recognize the plain concrete main stage after the festival’s vendors set up their equipment. It looked (and sounded) very impressive.
• Talking about the main stage area, it was an excellent idea to fence it off and create a “beer garden” area. Bonus points are awarded for having reasonably priced ($2) draft beer available. You can still have a family atmosphere at the Festival and still be able to enjoy a cold adult beverage.
• Crafters’ Row was filled with vendors and it seemed that people were buying things. There were so many people in that area that it almost became difficult to move around. In this economy, that’s a good problem to have.
• One crafter was packing up at 3:30 PM? That made no sense to me as the area was still full of potential customers.
• Food’s an important part of any festival like this and this year’s Festival had a good variety of food vendors. Although there was a bit of controversy about the selection of this year’s food vendors, there were consistent lines at their booths.
• Back to that food vendor controversy, I don’t understand the logic to restricting it down to 10 food vendors. I’ll touch on this later, but there’s plenty of unused area in Ballou Park for more food vendors.
• The “Pigs In The Park” BBQ competition had became a Festival tradition and it was abandoned this year. As discussed above, there is plenty of unused area in the park. Utilities could have been worked out. I’m not buying what they’re selling on that, and the loss of the “Pigs In The Park” was a bad thing.
• I found it interesting that the Festival’s committee didn’t run their normal insert in the Danville Register & Bee, as they used the Piedmont Shopper instead. Alan Lingerfelt & his crew are doing a good job with their publication and the main thing that’s holding them back is circulation problems. Is this the first sign of the Piedmont Shopper gaining more credibility at the expense of the R&B?
• There’s still a few people (mainly the Usual Suspects at the R&B comments section and old people) who still seem to remember the Horrible Incident where fights broke out at the Festival over 15 years ago. It’s grossly unfair to hold one incident like that against the overall success rate over the past 36 years.

Danville’s Festival In The Park is good, clean family-based entertainment with something for everybody. That being said, it’s not the Festival from 20 years ago and could easily be a lot larger. It’s a shame to leave a lot of Ballou Park’s area unused. The Festival In The Park organizers were able to pull off another good festival even with the loss of the “Pigs In The Park” event. If you haven’t attended the Festival in the past few years, you should definitely give it a try.