The 2011 Dogwood Festival Experience: See Photos

The 2011 Dogwood Festival in Fayetteville, N.C. was a great success.  The weather was perfect, the crowd’s came in waves, and festival park was jamming!  From midday to night fall, the festival attempted to keep up with the pace of attendants.  The crowd was energetic, yet diverse.  School kids filled the streets in groups.  During certain times in the evening, the school crowd was abundant as if downtown was the meetup location. Older folks enjoyed the show, too.  Some appeared as professional festival attendees, well equipped with lawn chairs, coolers, mats, and child carriages stuffed with their essentials.  Couples roamed around joined at hands, at any age, soaking up the event’s atmosphere.

The festival stretched across the downtown area.  Vendors pitched their tents on Hay St. in close view of the markethouse and downtown shops.  Restaurants such as Lido’s, Peirros, Cameo, & BeefO’Brady’s were packed with guest sitting outside and crowded insides.  The crowd flowed in the streets with most walking from Hay Street toward Festival Park.

Huske Hardware attracted the crowd as well as the Wet Willies tent on side of the venue.  Police and Firefighters were posted on corners to direct the traffic and provide safety for pedestrians.  The walk to Festival Park on Ray Ave was difficult at times, as the crowd piled up near the Public Library Headquarters.  There was a choice to walk to the outside carnival rides (@$3 ride) or walk toward Festival park, passing the food vendors.

Food consisted of a variety of choices!  From Asian cuisines, country fried steak sandwiches, italian sausages, ribs, or even crabcake sandwiches, there was something for everyone.  One of the cheapest plates was at Granny’s booth, where the inside meat of your sandwich could be 4x’s the size of the bread.  After 6pm, the lines were long; averaging 10-20 persons wait.

Once you got your food & friends, you could sit out on Festival Park’s lawn and watch the show!  Friday night consisted of Jo Dee Messina’s country music performance.  The show ended in fireworks with an enthusiastic crowd.  Saturday “rock’d on” with Everclear and local performance by Summerfield.  In the distance, Kidstuff playground attracted the kids.  An inflatable playground let kids jump around and slide down slides throughout the day.

Overall, the Festival was a great show.  The crowd was deep once again with little publicity and advertising as years before.  The event seemingly included less vendors with giveaways and promotions.  The turnout seemed similar to last year and the additions to the event were good choices in attracting and entertaining the attendants.  Today is Sunday, the last day to visit.  If you haven’t been, then I invite you to not miss one of the biggest events in Fayetteville for the year.  If you did get to join the festival crowd, we’d like to hear your comments.   FayToday has also launched a website for Fayetteville Social discussions at FayTalk.com.  Here, we connect the residents and their concerns about the Fayetteville area.

View our 2011 Dogwood Festival gallery below:

or view high quality images by Frank Manness: click here or here

Other News about the Dogwood Festival: