CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Festivall will begin its 12th year in Charleston Thursday night at Appalachian Power Park. Normally, it’s a ten day event, but this year it’s a 12 day celebration to mark 12 years of the annual summer expo of the arts in the capital city.
“It’s multi arts, we’ve got music, theater, dance, visual arts and there’s a lot of family fun activities too,” said FestivAll Director Brittany Javins. “Even now we are incorporating some of the literary arts and humanities. We have an authors’ roundtable discussion with a lot of people talking about their art. It’s a sampling of everything.”
Organizers estimate the event draws about 50,000 people to Charleston each year.
“It’s such a great time a lot of people plan their vacations around it,” said Javins.
The more popular events are back again with Blues, Brews, and Barbecues, Wine and All That Jazz, the Mayor’s Concert, and the Smoke on the Water Chili Cookoff.
“The Cashore Marionettes were our main event last year, but they were so popular they are returning this year,” she said. “We actually have new twists on old favorites this year. The popular wiener dog races is now “Woofstock and Wieners” and it’s moved to Magic Island. The ice cream social is now “Ice Cream and the Arts” in Elk City making for an urban street fair this Saturday.”
It’s the city’s biggest celebration of the year and offers a lot for everybody. Javins suggest making a game plan on what you’d like to see and personalize your schedule of events.
“There’s so much to take in, you need to really comb through that schedule,” Javins said. “There’s a lot of free events and a lot of low cost ticketed events. We hope everybody will come out and have a great time.”
You can see the full list of events for each day online at FestivallCharleston.com