Festival heads to Lynchburg
Get! Downtown offers a variety of music and vendors for locals to enjoy
For the past five years, six blocks in downtown Lynchburg have been closed off for a single day to make room for the annual Get! Downtown Street Festival.
Activity — Downtown will be filled with food and entertainment. Photo credit: Ruth Bibby
The sixth annual event will take place Sept. 12 from 6 to 9 p.m. and will feature four stages for musical entertainment, food vendors, more than 120 local businesses and a variety of street performers, including face-painters, stilt-walkers and jugglers. The event will stretch from 13th Street to 7th Street.
“This year’s festival welcomes Aerialist Robin Bryant as she suspends 20 feet in the air at the Community Market; the steel drum band, Skiffle, all the way from Trinidad; a live video broadcast of the entire event over livestreamlynchburg.com; and an expanded festival block sponsored by Genworth Financial,” Event Coordinator Tabitha Abbott wrote in a press release of the event.
Abbott was a Get! Downtown street vendor for the past two years before she was asked to coordinate this year’s festival. She said the best part of each event is getting to see all of the different attractions.
“I enjoy finding out how much talent we have here in Lynchburg,” Abbott said. “From incredible break-dancers to stilt-walkers and amazing bands, Lynchburg has a lot of talent.”
More than 10,000 people attended last year’s event, making Get! Downtown the largest outdoor street festival in Lynchburg, according to the Get! Downtown website. According to Abbott, preparing for an audience this large takes a lot of work.
“I have been planning the event since July, but I would honestly have preferred to have started earlier,” Abbott said. “There is a lot to coordinate over six blocks. … It takes a lot of people and support to make this possible.”
According to Abbott, Get! Downtown was named for the idea of connecting Lynchburg residents with all of the downtown Lynchburg facilities.
“We are encouraging Lynchburg’s colleges, families and general public to come to downtown Lynchburg to patron its businesses and find out more about all of the amenities that downtown Lynchburg has to offer,” Abbot said.
For more information on Get! Downtown and to see a full list of the activities that will be set up on each block, visit getdowntownlynchburgva.com. For continued updates on the what is happening at Get! Downtown, visit their Facebook page.