Lineups for live music, the Fine Art Show, tantalizing summer food and more await virtual visitors to the brand-new website for the Smoky Hill River Festival, launched on April 9 by event organizer Salina Arts & Humanities, a division of the City of Salina.
“Making our artist, performer, and Festival-activity information available at our visitors’ fingertips is our goal,” says Executive Director Brad Anderson, who leads a full-time staff of six plus 2,000 volunteers who team up to put on this award-winning, regional cultural event, now in its 36th year.
“Whether our Festival-goers come from across town or across the state, we want our event schedules and updates to be easy to find and share,” adds Anderson, himself a former Festival artist. “So that our visitors and their families can slow down and relax once they get here, we work to make their travel plans and ‘what to do first’ list-making easy and fun for.”
Started in 1976 as a bicentennial event for the City of Salina, the River Festival, as locals and regulars call it, this year will host nearly 20 professional musical and roving entertainment acts, more than 150 fine artists and craft vendors, and 35 high-caliber food vendors. Other highlights of the 3.5-day event are 20 ‘set in nature’ outdoor art installations designed to stimulate the senses along with about 20 hands-on children’s activities, all within the City’s shaded Oakdale Park in midtown.
Scheduled for Thursday through Sunday, June 7-10, the Festival’s musical highlights this year include headliners Steep Canyon Rangers performing as a blue and honky-tonk quintet, Tea Leaf Green, a San Francisco five-some featuring ‘playful outlaw rock,’ and Black Girls, a Richmond-based all-male group known for its distinctive psychedelic southern soul sound. Roving performers ranging from mechanical mimes to puppet theatre to a vaudeville clown round out the varied entertainment for 2012 Festival-goers. Performance times, photos, and bios for each group or performer are found at riverfestival.com, under the Entertainment tab.
On the visual-arts front for Festival 2012, practitioners selected for the Fine Art Show and Four Rivers Craft Show represent a stunning array of vibrant work in painting, photography, jewelry, ceramics, fiber art, printmaking, leatherwork, and more. One highlight of the Artists-in-Action outdoor installations will be the temporary sculpture created by Steven Siegel of New York, who will use recycled Salina Journal newspapers, along with other natural and post-consumer materials, to create a work that will change over time in response to the environment. Also with the area of Visual Arts, eight Demonstration Artists will ‘show and tell’ about the thought and processes behind the making of fiber art, glass beads and marbles, ornamental ironwork, and more. Each demonstrator will share one or two times a day, with one to two demonstrations on the hour from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 12 noon to 3 p.m. on Sunday.
The River Festival begins on Thursday, June 7 with the Festival Jam concert at 6 p.m. Festival gates open that afternoon at 4 pm. with food-vendor fare available. The rest of the Festival evolves over the weekend, with special events including the Festival Fitness Five run, a Big Band Dance, craft demonstrations, performances on four stages and throughout the Park, and more.
Admission to the Smoky Hill River Festival is by Festival Button only, $10 in advance or $15 at the Gate—good for all days. In addition to 30 retail locations within Salina, Festival Buttons are also sold at Dillons stores in McPherson, Great Bend, Hays, Junction City, and Manhattan. Visit the home page of the Festival website, at www.riverfestival.com or call 785-309-5770 for more details about how to obtain Festival Buttons, T-shirts, the 2012 Festival Print, shopping Gift Certificates and more.