The city’s longest running festival, the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, an annual springtime celebration of arts and entertainment, turns 75 this year.
The festival will take place this weekend-April 15th through the 17th in Midtown’s Piedmont Park. Festival attendance is free, although a few of the areas are ticketed. www.dogwood.org
Fun for all for the entire weekend:
ART: Enjoy artists from throughout the country featuring all types of art from oil painting to jewelry to sculpture and textiles. There is plenty to tempt any collector!
SPECTATORS: Each year, the Atlanta Dogwood Festival offers entertainment throughout the weekend including two live music stages, a popular live disc dog show, theater productions and kid-friendly street performances.
KIDS: Designed just for the younger festival visitors, the Kid’s Village has become an Atlanta Dogwood Festival favorite for families. This interactive zone comes complete with hands-on art projects, special kid-friendly displays and hours of entertainment for children.
History of the Festival:
On April 19, 1936, Atlanta invited the world to attend her first Dogwood Festival. Walter Rich, president of ADF and founder of Rich’s department stores, sought to make Atlanta internationally known for the blooming of the dogwood trees during the week-long event. Trees were planted in all parts of Atlanta under the sponsorship of garden clubs and public spirited citizens interested in the beautification of the city. Pageants, parades and carnivals sponsored by the Junior League, along with performances by the Metropolitan Opera, Philadelphia Symphony and choruses from local colleges were featured.
After having been discontinued in 1941 because of World War II for nearly two decades, the Women’s Chamber of Commerce revived the festival in the 1960’s and grew it into one of the largest civic celebrations in the southeast. Throughout the sixties and seventies numerous events were added including an international, juried art show, a spectacular hot air balloon race, a regatta at Lake Lanier and several home tours showcasing Atlanta’s oldest and most beautiful neighborhoods at the height of spring blossoms. In the 1980’s the festival drew crowds of more than one hundred thousand to big name concerts such as Paul Revere and the Raiders and Three Dog Night which were free to the public.
By the late 1980’s the festival had grown to a month long event with 30 to 50 smaller events. The Women’s Chamber created The Atlanta Dogwood Festival, Inc. to allow for more community involvement and support and added an environmental focus with Earth Day events and the first Christmas Tree Recycling project. The festival became more focused with a shorter duration concentrated in Buckhead, Piedmont Park and Midtown.
In spite of a short-lived move from Piedmont Park to the Lenox Square Mall parking lot due to severe drought conditions in the late 2000’s the festival has continued to grow in scope and mission attracting hundreds of thousands of participants and creating an economic impact on the city of more than $50 million annually.
-Contributed by Sandra Carey
Sandra has been active on the board of the Atlanta Dogwood Festival in the past and was instrumental in creating the current non-profit organization, the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, Inc., which oversees the festival’s production today.