Kent, Ohio - Culture

Culture

Cultural elements in Kent include various arts, environmental, and entertainment events during the year, as well as the Kent State University Museum. The Kent Heritage Festival is held every July in the downtown area, coinciding with the U.S. Independence Day. The festival includes crafts, booths, entertainment, train rides, 5K and 10K races, and fireworks, drawing approximately 25,000 people each year. In October, Kent hosts the homecoming festivities for Kent State University, including a parade down East Main Street as well as other events and activities both on campus and around the city. Also in October, the downtown area hosts an annual, yet unofficial, Halloween celebration, which usually takes place the last Saturday of October. The event typically draws thousands, largely Kent State students, and includes many who dress in costume. In 2007 Main Street Kent, a local organization that promotes downtown Kent, created a family-oriented Halloween event downtown that precedes the unofficial celebration. Since 2007, Kent has hosted an annual environmental festival known as "Who's Your Mama?" which takes place in conjunction with Earth Day. The festival has events at various locations in the city, such as a vegan chef competition, concerts, a film festival, guest speakers, and booths on environment-based topics. Through Main Street Kent, additional events downtown include the annual Haymaker Farmers' Market, held every Saturday morning from May through October, as well as an ice cream social event in August, an outdoor concert series and "sidewalk cinema" between May and September, an art and wine festival in June, a cider festival in November, and the Festival of Lights Christmas celebration in early December.

The Kent Stage, located downtown, is a performance venue for a variety of arts performances in music and theater. It hosts around 90 concerts, four theatrical performances, and four film festivals or movie premiers per year, including local, national, and international performers. Since opening in 2002, it has been visited by approximately 120,000 patrons from all over Ohio, 38 U.S. states, and 3 countries. In April, it hosts events related to the "Who's Your Mama?" Earth Day festival and in September, it is one of the host venues for the Kent State Folk Festival, an annual event in folk music since the late 1960s and the second-longest running folk festival held on a college campus in the U.S. The festival includes "Folk Alley 'Round Town" that features free concerts at venues throughout the city. Along with concerts at the Kent Stage, performances and workshops take place on the campus of Kent State University. The Kent Stage also hosts the Kent Blues Festival and a local artist music festival known as the Up From The River Music Festival.

Kent is also home to the Kent State University Museum, located in Rockwell Hall on the KSU campus. The museum focuses on the history of fashion design and decorative arts in the United States and around the world from the 18th century to the present. Each year in early May, the university hosts an annual commemoration of the Kent State shootings, which typically features several speakers, forums, artwork, and other related events. On campus, Kent State operates the May 4 Visitors' Center, which covers the shootings and the events surrounding them. It is housed in Taylor Hall on the site added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010 and includes three galleries covering art and media from the era of the 1960s leading up to the shootings, images from the actual event, and the local and national impact after the shootings. The center opened to the public October 20, 2012 during the Kent State Homecoming weekend.

In addition to the Kent State Shootings Site near the center of campus, there are also a number of additional sites and districts in Kent on the National Register of Historic Places, some of which are open to the public. The Kent Industrial District is a historical district along the Cuyahoga River adjacent to downtown that includes an area and structures that were important in Kent's early history. On the northwestern part of the Kent State University campus is the Ohio State Normal College At Kent district, which includes the school's five original classic revival buildings dating to 1913. There is also the West Main Street District just west of downtown that includes 20 private homes of architectural and historical significance from the post-Civil War and early 20th century periods. The district includes the Kent Masonic Center, which was originally built in the early 1880s as the home of Marvin Kent and his family, and the former residence of Martin L. Davey, who served as Governor of Ohio. Buildings in Kent listed on the register include three private homes noted for their architecture styles: the John Davey House for the Second Empire style, and both the Aaron Ferrey and Charles Kent Houses as examples of Gothic Revival. Other buildings include the 1869 Kent Jail, now used by the Parks and Recreation Department, and the 1837 Franklin Township Hall, the site of eventual U.S. President James A. Garfield's first nomination for public office in 1859.