Large Events and Festivals
Augusta is host to a variety of annual events. The largest event held in the city each year is the Masters golf tournament bringing in around 250,000 visitors. One of the majors of the PGA tour, the Masters is also a major cultural influence on the city. Most semi-professional sports teams in the city are named for puns related to the tournament (the Augusta Greenjackets and the now defunct Augusta Lynx). Many establishments in the city, especially in the area around the Augusta National Golf Club, are also named in a similar manner. Restaurants throughout Augusta use memorabilia from the tournament as decor. In fact, spring break for schools within the Richmond County School System coincides with the tournament, similarly to the timing of school breaks in New Orleans and Mardi Gras.
Other annual events include the cultural festival Arts in the Heart of Augusta, the Hip hop concert Mayfest, and the arts festival Westobou. The Rock Fore! Dough Concert is a charity concert held each year to coincide with the Masters golf tournament. The CSRA Classic, a traditional style marching band competition, is also held each year in Augusta.
Each year, Augusta also hosts the Augusta Futurity, the largest horse cutting show east of the Mississippi River. In 2009, the Futurity hosted its 30th annual event.
Along with these annual events, downtown Augusta also hosts a monthly "First Friday" arts festival in the downtown Artist's Row district.
Augusta hosts an annual LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) pride parade called Augusta Pride. Augusta Pride attracted 4,000 people in 2010, its first year. The festival is rapidly growing and an estimated 7,000 people attended in 2011.
Read more about this topic: Arts And Culture In Augusta, Georgia
Famous quotes containing the words large, events and/or festivals:
“O thou undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dower of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large then they;
By all thy brim-fill’d Bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last Morning’s draught of liquid fire;
By the full kingdom of that final kiss
That seiz’d thy parting Soul, and seal’d thee his;”
—Richard Crashaw (1613?–1649)
“Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone, which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“This is certainly not the place for a discourse about what festivals are for. Discussions on this theme were plentiful during that phase of preparation and on the whole were fruitless. My experience is that discussion is fruitless. What sets forth and demonstrates is the sight of events in action, is living through these events and understanding them.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)