{"id":6910,"date":"2010-05-15T23:26:19","date_gmt":"2010-05-16T03:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=6910"},"modified":"2010-05-15T23:26:19","modified_gmt":"2010-05-16T03:26:19","slug":"some-thoughts-about-danvilles-festival-in-the-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/05\/15\/some-thoughts-about-danvilles-festival-in-the-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Some thoughts about Danville&#8217;s Festival In The Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Any event that&#8217;s lasted for 36 years has to be doing something right. Let&#8217;s look at some random thoughts about the Festival In The Park&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>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 &#8220;Youth Art Gala&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>You&#8217;d never recognize the plain concrete main stage after the festival&#8217;s vendors set up their equipment. It looked (and sounded) very impressive.<\/li>\n<li>Talking about the main stage area, it was an excellent idea to fence it off and create a &#8220;beer garden&#8221; 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.<\/li>\n<li>Crafters&#8217; 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&#8217;s a good problem to have.<\/li>\n<li>One crafter was packing up at 3:30 PM? That made no sense to me as the area was still full of potential customers.<\/li>\n<li>Food&#8217;s an important part of any festival like this and this year&#8217;s Festival had a good variety of food vendors. Although there was a <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.godanriver.com\/gdr\/news\/local\/article\/vendor_lineup_offers_variety_causes_stir\/20907\/\" target=\"_blank\">bit of controversy about the selection of this year&#8217;s food vendors<\/a>, there were consistent lines at their booths.<\/li>\n<li>Back to that food vendor controversy, I don&#8217;t understand the logic to restricting it down to 10 food vendors. I&#8217;ll touch on this later, but there&#8217;s plenty of unused area in Ballou Park for more food vendors.<\/li>\n<li>The &#8220;Pigs In The Park&#8221; BBQ competition had became a Festival tradition and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/01\/happy-trails-pigs-in-the-park\/\" target=\"_blank\">it was abandoned this year<\/a>. As discussed above, there is plenty of unused area in the park. Utilities could have been worked out. I&#8217;m not buying what they&#8217;re selling on that, and the loss of the &#8220;Pigs In The Park&#8221; was a bad thing.<\/li>\n<li>I found it interesting that the Festival&#8217;s committee didn&#8217;t run their normal insert in the Danville Register &amp; Bee, as they used the Piedmont Shopper instead. Alan Lingerfelt &amp; his crew are doing a good job with their publication and the main thing that&#8217;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&amp;B?<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s still a few people (mainly the Usual Suspects at the R&amp;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&#8217;s grossly unfair to hold one incident like that against the overall success rate over the past 36 years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Danville&#8217;s Festival In The Park is good, clean family-based entertainment with something for everybody. That being said, it&#8217;s not the Festival from 20 years ago and could easily be a lot larger. It&#8217;s a shame to leave a lot of Ballou Park&#8217;s area unused. The Festival In The Park organizers were able to pull off another good festival even with the loss of the &#8220;Pigs In The Park&#8221; event. If you haven&#8217;t attended the Festival in the past few years, you should definitely give it a try.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Any event that&#8217;s lasted for 36 years has to be doing something right. Let&#8217;s look at some random thoughts about the Festival In The Park&#8230;<\/p>\n<p> [&#8230;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,6,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-eventscentral","category-opinioncentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1Ns","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7515,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2012\/05\/19\/danvilles-festival-in-the-park-live\/","url_meta":{"origin":6910,"position":0},"title":"Danville&#8217;s Festival in the Park &#8211; LIVE!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It's time for Danville's annual Festival In The Park & SouthsideCentral is covering it LIVE! We'll have observations and comments as we make our way around Danville's Ballou Park and the surrounding area. The coverage should start around 2:30 PM and continue for a while, so refresh this article for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12715,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/05\/17\/photocentral-festival-in-the-park-2015-part-7\/","url_meta":{"origin":6910,"position":1},"title":"PhotoCentral: Festival in the Park \u2013 2015 \u2013 Part #7","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"If you haven't figured out that SouthsideCentral has more coverage of Danville's Festival in the Park than any other media source, I can't help you. Heh. Let's roll on with our 7th PhotoCentral article. Here's the recap of what we've published so far: Part #1 - Part #2 - Part\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/AXtq0MU.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/AXtq0MU.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/AXtq0MU.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/AXtq0MU.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12713,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/05\/17\/photocentral-festival-in-the-park-2015-part-6\/","url_meta":{"origin":6910,"position":2},"title":"PhotoCentral: Festival in the Park \u2013 2015 \u2013 Part #6","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"If you keep clicking on the articles, I'll keep these PhotoCentrals coming. We're looking at Friday evening at Danville's Festival in the Park. When we left off, I had almost completed the walk through the food vendors. Ain't gonna lie to you, folks. I was stuffed. That's a good thing.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/cA7tmbm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/cA7tmbm.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/cA7tmbm.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/cA7tmbm.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":27412,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2016\/05\/19\/danvilles-2016-festival-in-the-park-part-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":6910,"position":3},"title":"Danville&#8217;s 2016 Festival in the Park &#8211; Part #5","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"SouthsideCentral is the media source with the most photos from Danville's Festival in the Park and we're adding more with Part #5 in our PhotoCentral series. Let's keep it going! Here's the links to the other articles in this series: Part #1 - Part #2 - Part #3 - Part\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/X2lZOJt.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/X2lZOJt.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/X2lZOJt.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/X2lZOJt.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6350,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/01\/happy-trails-pigs-in-the-park\/","url_meta":{"origin":6910,"position":4},"title":"Happy Trails, Pigs in the Park!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"February 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"3\u00bd months until Danville's 36th annual \"Festival In The Park\", but a big fan favorite is not coming back. Festival in the Park focusing on family fun Before we start, we would like you to know that the 2010 Festival will be held May 14-16th (nice editing there, R&B). And\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27974,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2016\/05\/22\/danvilles-2016-festival-in-the-park-part-8\/","url_meta":{"origin":6910,"position":5},"title":"Danville&#8217;s 2016 Festival in the Park &#8211; Part #8","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In Part #7 of our walk through Danville's Festival in the Park, we took a look behind the scenes. We'll finish that here in Part #8 and start heading down the main street area. We've got the links to the other articles in this series below the cutline. Away we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Y7coPrS.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Y7coPrS.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Y7coPrS.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Y7coPrS.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}