Festival History
The Old Town BluesFest was started by the Old Town Business and Art Development Association in 1994 under the name OctoberFest and without the specific focus on blues music. Lansing's alternative radio station, 92.1 WWDX, signed on as media sponsor; Message Makers, a local media company, became the founding business sponsor. In its early years, the festival welcomed such renowned artists as Marcy Playground, Kid Rock, Duncan Sheik and 19 Wheels, as well as local artists Powerface, Knee Deep Shag, The Lash, and The Weepers. In its early years, the festival had 2,000-3,000 attendees.
In 2003, the festival committee changed the focus of the festival to blues music and welcomed local radio station 94.9 WMMQ as its new primary media sponsor.
Read more about this topic: Old Town Blues Fest
Famous quotes containing the words festival and/or history:
“Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme, I have tried; I can find no rhyme to “lady” but “baby”Man innocent rhyme; for “scorn,” “horn”Ma hard rhyme; for “school,” “fool”Ma babbling rhyme; very ominous endings. No, I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)