The fourth annual Arts Alive! Fine Arts & Crafts Festival is being held from 10:00 a.m. thru 5:00 p.m. Friday, May 4th and Saturday, May 5th in and around downtown Jackson’s Smith Park.
Arts Alive! is an ecumenical effort to promote and celebrate Central Mississippi’s performing and creative artists and to assist with the continuing revitalization of Downtown Jackson. The festival will have entertainment throughout each day on the Smith Park Stage as well as food and fine arts vendors throughout the park. The festival will kick off Friday at 10:00 a.m. with Senior Hour, which will feature harpist, Amanda Mangrum and the MSO Brass Quintet. It will be followed by a Patriotic Hour which will feature the Color Guard and Patriotic Music, as well as speakers. The afternoon will have an assortment of Jazz and other entertainment and the day will finish with Teens Alive!
On Saturday, May 5th the morning will be filled with such great performers as the Galloway String and Wind Band, MSO Woodwind Quartet, Legacy, and Swing de Paris. In the afternoon, we’ll feast our eyes on the beautiful dance performances of Ballet Mississippi, Duncan Dance, Jackson Irish Dancers, Front Porch Dancers, and Ballet Magnificat.
Additionally, the festival will feature Kids Alive! sponsored by Parents & Kids Magazine. Featured will be the MS Children's Museum Imagination Playground, a Kids Dance! Booth, Music Booth, Train, Space Jump and our Kids Create! booth, where each child will make their own creation to take home with them! Children will be able to interact with exotic animals as Safari Man Percy King will return to Arts Alive! this year.
Teens Alive! is from 3:30 p.m. thru 5:00 p.m. on Friday, May 4th on the Smith Park Stage. It will star high school students showing off their many talents. There will be rock and roll, piano, harp, vocalist and much more!!
The festival will feature the 2nd annual Rubber Duck Races! Attendees can purchase numbered ducks, which are then raced through the waterways of Smith Park. Everyone enthusiastically cheers their duck(s) along the waterway. There is also colorful commentary over the sound system. Great prizes donated by local businesses and artists are given for each of the winners. We will race the ducks approximately once per hour.
The festival is hosted by the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle, The Episcopal Cathedral Parish of St. Andrew, and Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church, and in partnership with the City of Jackson (Department of Human and Cultural Services), and Downtown Jackson Partners.
