With just over two months until Columbia?s highly-anticipated 40th birthday celebration, plans for the festivities are in full swing.
“This is not the year to take a summer vacation,” said Barbara Russell, Columbia Association board member from Oakland Mills and chair of the task force charged with planning the celebration. “This is the year to stay in Columbia and celebrate.”
From June 6 to July 15, Columbia will be alive with nonstop entertainment, including a wide array of local and national artists who have yet to be determined, Russell said.
Back by popular demand this year is City Fair, a weekend event where local nonprofits, businesses and arts and crafts vendors set up booths around the lake. To coordinate the event, the association hired The Party Connoisseur and Signature Space LLC for design and logistics.
“It?s a wonderful opportunity for people to get to know all of the things that are available in Columbia,” Russell said.
The birthday party coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Columbia Festival of the Arts, which kicks off the festivities June 6 with more than two weeks of performances. Roughly 40,000 people are expected to attend the event, Hickey said, half of whom will come the first weekend.
Festival organizers began planning and reaching out to financial supporters as early as August 2005, said Nichole Hickey, executive director for the organization.
The festival received a $1 million matching grant from the Rouse Company Foundation, which will encourage others to give and help the organization expand the festivities in coming years, said Steve Sachs, president of the organization?s Board of Directors.
This year is expected to give revelers a taste of nostalgia, rounding up acts who have performed at previous festivals, such as jazz great Wynton Marsalis.
“We sought diligently to find performers from the past,” Hickey said.
Organizers also paired the nationally touring greats with lesser-known local artists, Hickey said. For example, choral group Columbia Pro Cantare will join the Minnesota Dance Theater for a performance of Carl Orff?s Carmina Burana.
For more information on the Columbia Festival of the Arts schedule, visit columbiafestival.com.
