April 25 – 26 event is sibling to venerable Festival in the Park
CHARLOTTE (April 2, 2015) — Festival in the Park, Charlotte’s ever-popular event that transforms Freedom Park here into a visceral arts, crafts, food and entertainment festival every September since 1964, is continuing its springtime sibling event, the Kings Drive Art Walk (KDAW).
The fifth annual event will be held Saturday, April 25, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, April 27, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Little Sugar Creek Greenway along Kings Drive, near the Metropolitan in Midtown. The festival will again feature fine arts for sale in numerous mediums, including paint and drawing; sculpture; pottery; and metal, stone, wood and glass works.
This year’s event includes a new spacious location for the JazzArts Music Stage, which will welcome music lovers at the northwest corner of the Pearl Park Way bridge and S. Kings Drive. Admission to the festival will be free and open to the public.
“We’re delighted to have a new, high-profile location for two days of live jazz from some of the top musicians in the Charlotte region,” said David Dalton, longtime chairman of the Festival in the Park board of directors. “The JazzArts Initiative continues as an outstanding partner of the Kings Drive Art Walk and their performances are a perfect complement to all of the fine artists who will make this the best fine arts festival we have had to date.”
The KDAW has added an array of new concessions with a delightful menu to please the palate. As patrons stroll the Greenway, they will encounter performances by aerial dancers, jugglers and roving minstrels.
Parking is available in several lots and along neighborhood streets around Sugar Creek. The KDAW asks our visitors to refrain from parking at retail parking lots/decks and any of the parking decks near Carolinas Medical Center. Streets must remain open around CMC open to ensure passage of emergency vehicles. Mecklenburg County Parks & Recreation serves as the host of the KDAW.
This project was made possible, in part, with funding from the Arts & Science Council, the N.C. Arts Council – a division of the Department of Cultural Resources – and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.
Festival organizers are thrilled to announce that Piedmont Natural Gas (PNG) will return as the 2015 Green Sponsor. PNG is focused on green initiatives within their own organization, making this a perfect partnership. With their support, recycling bins will be available for festival-goers to discard their recyclable waste.
Festival in the Park is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered here.
(www.FESTIVALinthePARK.org ; Facebook.com/FESTIVALinthePARKcharlotte; @FITP),