You can think of the Cultural Council’s Celebration of the Arts festival Saturday as a sort of find-your-friends app on your phone. Last year, the inaugural event drew an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people to the oak-shaded pathways of Riverside Park. This year, they’re expecting as many as 5,000.
Though it is billed as a way to introduce residents to Vero’s cultural offerings, the effort has a more obvious purpose in this slow month of cultural offerings: It gives people something to do.
Apart from bumping into people you know, the festival can fill you in on the upcoming season, as well as offerings for kids and a closer look at Vero’s arts institution.
Want to see behind the scenes of Riverside Theatre? There are tours all day. Need to wrap your head around what it takes to blow a note on an oboe, or wrap your knees around a cello? Check out the Atlantic Classical Orchestra’s instrument petting zoo. Missed the incredible Walter Wick exhibit at the art museum? Waltz in for free all day; the “I Spy” photographer and author’s show closes the very next day.
The museum will also be offering Kids Art Shop from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The program, free to museum members and $5 for non-members, is for kids ages 4 to 11. And the Riverside Children’s Theatre will be holding auditions at 10 a.m. for “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” open to all kids ages 10 and up.
“I don’t know how you were growing up but my mother wouldn’t have considered taking me to a classical concert, and she was a school teacher,” says the Cultural Council’s Debbie Avery, who grew up in Kentucky. “This gives the community the opportunity to find out what’s involved in a theater production or to talk to somebody from an orchestra, which is absolutely wonderful because it takes away some of the fear of the unknown.”
Beyond the cultural behemoth institutions, more than 100 other organizations will be passing out flyers, from ballet schools to martial arts classes.
It also includes schedule information for less locally prominent arts organizations like the supper club Theatre-go-Round and Fort Pierce’s Sunrise Theatre. There will be groups performing on a stage in the center of the park all day. Hot dogs and popcorn will be available for purchase as well as food from Chelsea’s, Osceola Grill, Too-jays, and Tea and Chi.
The Saturday festival is free and runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Meanwhile, also on Saturday, at the northern end of the island off the Wabasso Causeway, the Environmental Learning Center is celebrating National Estuaries Day with events from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. That event, too, is free.
As for evening activities, there’s the Friday night kick-off cocktail party in the lobby of Riverside Theatre. One of the Cultural Council’s regularly scheduled Art of Networking events, the party will introduce the new Arts and Culture Guide. Last year, 175 people attended. It’s open to the public and is free for Cultural Council members. Non-members are charged $5. That includes hors d’oeuvres supplied by the theater. A cash bar is available.
From there, you can head back to the mainland for Main Street Vero Beach’s Downtown Friday celebration from 6 to 9 p.m. It will feature a Brevard and Orlando-based blues and Motown group, GT Express.
And on Saturday night, it’s back to the island for another street fair, the Sunset Saturday Night event that includes live music from Old Barber Bridge on a stage near Humiston Park, along with food and drink stands lining Ocean Drive from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
It’s also the last weekend to catch the Vero Beach Theatre Guild production of the farce, “No Sex Please, We’re British,” directed by Clara McCarthy. Call 562-8300 to reach the box office, open weekdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and for an hour before each performance. Or go online to www.verobeachtheatreguild.com. The theater is at 2020 San Juan Avenue, near the county administration building.