Festival of the Arts 2017

Early Friday Morning of FestivalA view of Calder Plaza hours before the start of Festival 2017

On the first full weekend of June, hundreds of thousand of people converge on downtown Grand Rapids to partake in Festival of the Arts. An annual three-day celebration of West Michigan arts and artists.

The first festival took place in 1970 a year after Alexander Calder’s La Grande Vitesse was installed in front of the newly built City Hall in downtown Grand Rapids, The area today is now called Calder Plaza.

 The first Festival of the Arts showcased  two stages and a limited number food booths drawing only several hundred people.

 Originally an activity of the Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids, Festival broke away in 2002 and became it’s own 501 (c)3 . Festival is now recognized as one of the largest all volunteer  arts festival in the country.

 2017 saw bands, food booths  and artist performing to thousands of people. Here are photos taken that weekend on the streets around Calder Plaza celebrating Festival of the Arts.

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Author: johnrothwellblog

John Rothwell currently resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he is a freelance photojournalist and reporter. In December of 2017, he finished his Communications Degree at Grand Valley State University and is currently working on adding a second degree in Multimedia Journalism. In addition to his academic work, he contributes photos, photo essays and local news coverage to The Rapidian, a hyperlocal citizen journalism platform, powered by the people of Grand Rapids. John believes that everyone has a story to tell and that story needs to be told in a medium that best suits the situation, either in photos, video, audio, word or a mixture of all. People must be informed on events happening in and around their lives and have their voices heard.

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