|
Local culture, crafts, entertainment to be spotlighted during June 12 Dillsboro festival
By Lynn Hotaling
A local festival, long recognized as an entertaining way of spotlighting regional heritage, crafts and music and filled with food and fun, will get under way at 9 a.m. Saturday, June 12.
Billed as a day of family fun, the focus of Dillsboro’s 20th annual street fair will be a variety of craft and food vendors, entertainment and heritage-themed booths, event organizers say.
Carden
Featured entertainers will include Sylva author and storyteller Gary Carden and music historian and performer Frank Lee of the Freight Hoppers, said Karen Barnes, entertainment coordinator for this year’s Dillsboro Heritage Festival, produced by Dillsboro’s Merchants Association.
Children’s activities will include face-painting by members of the Jackson County Arts Council and a “petting corral” hosted by Smoky Mountain Alpaca.
Festival-goers can receive information about regional history, heritage and preservation efforts by visiting booths and displays hosted by the Jackson County Historical Society, Jackson County Greenways Commission and Catch the Spirit of Appalachia.
The festival will be an all-day event, with non-stop entertainment from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., Barnes said. An “artists’ tent” will be located adjacent to the Church Street stage. Visitors for the first time will be able to stop by, meet the performers, and purchase CDs, books, videos and T-shirts, Barnes said.
New to this year’s event is a post-festival evening street dance featuring local band Zion Taxi. The dance will begin at 6:30 p.m. after most vendors’ booths are removed, Barnes said.
Craft and food vendors’ displays will line Front Street, which will be closed to vehicle traffic for the duration of the festival. The stage and artists’ tent will be on Church Street, Dillsboro’s shadiest, which will also be closed to vehicles. Church Street will also be the location of the evening’s street dance.
In addition to Carden and Lee, the following entertainers are scheduled to take the stage for Dillsboro’s 20th Heritage Festival: Celtic harpist and bagpiper Josh Bulla, front-porch band Sawmill Creek, string band Darnell Family, buck dancer Larry Queen, classic blues act Sugar and the Pooch, folk minstrel Henry Wong, guitar and harmonica duo Wooden Wind, flat-guitar picker Gary “Mr. Fantasy” Carter and contemporary Christian group Sonstruck.
|
