What a weekend. Even though we’re still a little soggy, and even though a few of the events we were excited about didn’t happen, it was still one of the busiest and best weekends we’ve had in Fayetteville in a really long time.
We were kind of all over the place, and here’s a brief recap of some of the events we attended, and a few pictures we took along the way.
Native Couture debut
Everyone knows Thursday is the new Friday, so our weekend started on Thursday night at Ultra Studios for their first event, A Fashion Evolution Experience.
Owner Brooke Benham debuted some of her designs, and judging by the packed house, Fayetteville is definitely ready to support locally made fashions and the possibility for a new arts district that hopefully Ultra Studios will be the start of in South Fayetteville. The night started with a silent auction, followed by Native American singers and dancers, followed by the fashion show. After the show, all of the clothing on display became available for purchase in the boutique. All of the proceeds from the event went to benefit Children’s House of Northwest Arkansas.
Cake frontman John McCrea
Friday night marked the season opening show at the Amp. Despite the rain, and despite the fact that most of the crowd stood in line in it for quite a while, the show did go on, and Amp owner Brian Crowne called the crowd at the Cake show “one of the most spirited” he’d ever seen.
We were surprised too to see just how pumped the crowd was to see the band even though the weather was pretty lame. The soggy audience crowded under the tents to avoid the rain, and Cake played three encores before it was all over. Check out M. Taylor Long’s incredible photos from the show here.
Fresh Express 50
On Saturday, we were up early for the Battle for Hope up in Bentonville. It was still raining, but lots of runners turned out to run in the 5k and 10k races, and we even ran the first ever Fresh Express 50 Yard Dash.
We didn’t win, but it’s possible that we were distracted by the racing banana, or the fact that Spongebob and the Cat in the Hat were also in attendance.
This was just the beginning of our really long day on Saturday, so we ran our short run, downed a glass of gatorade, gave a few high fives, and headed back to Fayetteville.
Close call
Next on the agenda was Springfest, where the rain poured on my head for most of the morning. Right around noon, the weather cleared up though, and we were able to catch Desert Fire, a local belly dancing troupe on the stage in the Walton Arts Center parking lot, some of the music on the Omni Stage in the rose garden, and the annual Bed Races up Dickson Street.
One of the racing beds almost killed Todd. It was a close call (see the picture for proof). The rain definitely put a damper on the event this year, but it didn’t stop us from eating a turkey leg and a funnel cake, and having a decent time.
ISACS accreditation certificate
Saturday night, we were at the New School Accreditation ceremony where we heard Mayor Lioneld Jordan, and Chamber President Steve Clark speak, and to celebrate the 38-year-old school’s ISACS accreditation award. You can read more about that here.
Later that night, we ended up at Smoke and Barrel for the NWA Equality Center benefit. Real Live Tigers, Hosta, and David’s Pegasus performed. Hill Country Review, (featuring Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars) also made a surprise appearance to close the show since their original performance at Springfest was cancelled due to the weather.
It was a pretty good weekend to say the least. What did you guys do?
