Coastal Companion

Your ultimate guide to the coast

37th Annual Flowertown Festival – Summerville, SC

by

This is one of the most popular yearly spring festivals in South Carolina, and it’s definitely one of the biggest events in Summerville. The Flowertown Festival offers a little bit for everyone, from arts and crafts to great food and fun rides for the kids.

Arts and Crafts
Over 200 artisans from across the country come to the Flowertown Festival to show their skills and sell their art. You’ll find a wide variety of arts and crafts from painting, pottery, glassworking, to woodworking, needlework and much, much more!

2009 Taste of Summerville
You definitely can’t miss this area. Here you can taste some of the best food the Lowcountry has to offer!

Some of the area’s finest restaurants participate in the event. Food in this section of the Festival is purchased with FOOD TICKETS which are available for $1 each.

Children’s Jubilee
This is the kids special area. The Children’s Jubilee is located on S. Main Street. Here you’ll find rides, games, treats and special arts and crafts projects to entertain the young ones.

Click here for more details about the Flowertown Festival in Summerville, South Carolina.

Springing the Blues 2009 – Jacksonville Beach

by

Springing The Blues is an annual festival drawing a crowd of approximately 125,000 blues fans to Jacksonville Beach. Here you can experience performances from some of the nation’s top Blues performers. Springing The Blues is a free outdoor blues music festival. The goal of the festival is to celebrate blues.  The three-day oceanfront music festival features a selection of blues performers as well as other  activities for the whole family to enjoy.

Springing The Blues festival is traditionally held at Jacksonville Beach, Florida’s Oceanfront SeaWalk Pavilion on the first weekend of April each year.

A Few Festival Facts:

• Downbeat Magazine named Springing the Blues as one of the top 50 Music Festivals in the World

• SouthEast Tourism Society named the festival as one of the top 20 destination events in the U.S.

• Springing the Blues is known as Florida’s largest free outdoor blues festival.

• In 1997 the festival was voted as “Best Festival in Northeast Florida” by Folio Weekly Magazine’s annual poll.

Past performers at the festival have included many famous musicians such as; Larry McCray, Phillip Walker, Tinsely Ellis, Saffire “The Uppity Blues Women,” Maurice John Vaughn, Earl King, Mitch Woods And His Rocket 88’s, Susan Tedeschi, North Mississippi Allstars, Tab Benoit, Little Jimmy King, Henry Gray and the Cats, Grammy Award winner Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Ruby Wilson, Charlie Musselwhite, Rod Piazza & the Mighty Flyers, Robert Jr. Lockwood, R. L. Burnside, Smoky Wilson, Coco Montoya, Smokin’ Joe Kubek and B’nois King.

This year the festival will take place on April 3-5 at Seawalk Plaza, Jacksonville Beach, Florida

First Wednesday Artwalk on April 1, 2009 – Jacksonville, Florida

by

Come to downtown Jacksonville for a fun-filled April Fool’s Day Art Walk. This event takes place on the first Wednesday of the month. Headquarters for the art walk is 100 North Laura Street in downtown where you can pick up your map.

This is a self guided art walk. (You can also click here to download the pdf map directly.)

Special for this week:

Participate in Paint Downtown. There is a streetscape improvement project at the corner of Laura and Adams Street. The Downtown Vision and AIGA are providing paint and canvas. Let the artist in you come out and have fun. There will even be live music at the street corner!

Main Library has a Big Read event. The big read is The Big Snowy Day so the library has been transformed into the Yukon. You can go rock climbing, pan for gold and supposedly even play in real snow…

And after 9 p.m the Art Walk afterparty kicks off at The Ivy Ultra Bar. Just turn in your flyer at the door for a free complimentary drink (if over 21 years of age).

For more information visit www.downtownjacksonville.org

Gullah Heritage Celebration – Mt Pleasant, SC

by

The National Park Service and the Town of Mount Pleasant present a Gullah Heritage Celebration

Ann Caldwell
Ann Caldwell

Gullah Heritage – Ann Caldwell

The National Park Service, in partnership with the Town of Mount Pleasant, is sponsoring a series of free cultural programs at Charles Pinckney National Historic site to celebrate the Gullah Heritage.

The Gullah people of the Lowcountry preserve a culture rich in African influences. Gullah has its own unique culture and its own language. The Gullah culture was developed on plantations in the area where enslaved Africans and African-Americans were the vast majority.
Participants include Ann Caldwell and the Magnolia Singers, spirituals; William Rouse, sweetgrass baskets.

Gullah Heritage Celebration – Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

March 28 at 2:00 p.m.
Charles Pinckney National Historic Site, 1254 Long Point Rd.,
Mt. Pleasant

For more info call (843) 881-5516 and visit www.nps.gov/chpi .