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Toog05
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Username: Toog05

Post Number: 117
Registered: 03-2006
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 2:25 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

By: Nolan Finley

6-day fest tied to fireworks aims to get crowds enjoying riverfront.

Remember that scene from "Animal House," where the rogue frat boys are ticking off their list of infractions and failings, weighing what to do next, when John Belushi shouts, "Toga Party!"?

Metro Detroit will issue its own version of that in-your-face rebuke of doom and gloom early this summer when it stages a six-day blowout to debut the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy's 3.5-mile River Walk...


http://www.detnews.com/apps/pb cs.dll/article?AID=/20070312/O PINION03/703120329
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Charlottepaul
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Username: Charlottepaul

Post Number: 672
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 8:44 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

That is a really good idea and I was always surprised that Detroit didn't have something like this sooner. Milwaukee has it's awesome Summer fest each summer with like four stages, all kinds of music (from like country to Ludacris), and lots of Milwaukee beer and beverages of course. It has to be one of the largest summer events as it seemed to run on for about a mile.
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Buzzman0077
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Username: Buzzman0077

Post Number: 23
Registered: 11-2006
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 2:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think this is great. It will bring people to the riverfront and to belle isle and will help drive people from the suburbs to come and spend more time, and importantly more money in the city.
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Johnlodge
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Username: Johnlodge

Post Number: 225
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 2:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It doesn't take much to get me down to the Riverfront. Last summer I enjoyed several of the free concerts, including Blue Oyster Cult and Dickie Bets. I like when the riverboat shows its appreciation after a song by blasting it's horn.
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Charlottepaul
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Username: Charlottepaul

Post Number: 675
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 2:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It's such a simple idea now with the riverwalk and all. Just have people walking up and down it with like a few beer stands or what not with like street performers and maybe some more well know celebrities performing at like Chene Park and Hart Plaza. Seems like it would be a great setup; all it needs is for people to come down.
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Mackinaw
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Username: Mackinaw

Post Number: 2545
Registered: 02-2005
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 3:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Great! Establish the riverfront as a place to be. With things undoubtedly going on around Comerica Park/Campus Martius at the same time, it will be good to have enough going on so that Jefferson Ave. can be bridged and all of downtown is awakened.

The next couple years will be kind of transitional though as we wait for riverwalk to be completed, for the Port Authority to build whatever they are building, and for some infill to happen in the depressingly vacant east riverfront neighborhood. Let me put it this way: if I am coming down to this event with out of town friends, I'll definitly check out the events to show them a good time in Detroit, but I'm not going to walk too far east of the Ren Cen because that has to be one of the most depressing and embarrasing parts of the city, at least for a couple more years.
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Ndavies
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Username: Ndavies

Post Number: 2482
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 3:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Don't we already have a festival that week? It used to be called the International freedom festival. It was a week long festival that included the Fireworks.

oooh look. The fireworks are still part of the Freedom festival.
http://www.theparade.org/freed omfest/

Why are we renaming/diluting something that has been going on for 49 years? Why not call it an expansion of the Freedom Festival? These activities have already been part of the freedom festival on the Windsor side.

Or is this just another case of a news writer not knowing what's going on in the city he works in?
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Supersport
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Username: Supersport

Post Number: 11409
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 3:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

Or is this just another case of a news writer not knowing what's going on in the city he works in?



Who said they actually work in the city?

NDavies,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the city income tax rollback been put on hold for multiple years now? After it was initially to be put on hold for just one year? The paper reported a few days ago that it was still being ratched back, which was news to me, news that I believe is false.
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Mackinaw
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Username: Mackinaw

Post Number: 2548
Registered: 02-2005
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 3:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think it's different, because it seems like they will be aggressive in terms of bringing in lots of acts/activities, and because it will expand eastward along the riverwalk, but yes, we should consider it an expansion of the Freedom Festival.

A Riverfront Conservancy official prefaced this idea at an event I was at a month ago, and I get the sense that it will be something much broader than the original Freedom Festival.
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Johnlodge
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Username: Johnlodge

Post Number: 226
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 4:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

They probably felt the Winter Blast has been so successfull, that a Summer Blast would attract more new visitors then just having the Freedom Festival. Doesn't bother me any. Windsor can have its own festivals. Or we can export the Freedom Festival down to El Paso and they can share it with Juarez.

The important thing is that it will bring people downtown, and a fresh, yet familiar name may spark interest in those that haven't bothered coming down for the freedom festival in the past.

Then again:
"Or is this just another case of a news writer not knowing what's going on in the city he works in?"

It could be just that.
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Iheartthed
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Username: Iheartthed

Post Number: 496
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 4:06 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think it should be renamed the Motown Summer Blast. That has more marketing appeal...
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Yupislyr
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Username: Yupislyr

Post Number: 192
Registered: 07-2004
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 - 6:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The Windsor side of the Freedom Festival went bankrupt I think a few years back.

Now we have Summer Fest in it's place ( http://www.summerfestwindsor.o rg ) which is basically the same thing as before. Although definitely still a far scaled back version of the Freedom Festival I remember as a kid.

(Message edited by yupislyr on March 12, 2007)
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Eric
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Username: Eric

Post Number: 702
Registered: 11-2004
Posted on Tuesday, March 13, 2007 - 2:21 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The events name will actually be the Detroit International River Days.

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll /article?AID=/20070312/NEWS01/ 70312045/1003
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Downtown_remix
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Username: Downtown_remix

Post Number: 58
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 11:55 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

awesome
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Fishtoes2000
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Username: Fishtoes2000

Post Number: 187
Registered: 06-2005
Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 5:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I biked down to Mt. Elliot Park this morning to check on the Riverwalk progress. The portion going into Harbortown is not open at Mt. Elliot but it does look to be open to those inside the Harbortown property.
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Pffft
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Username: Pffft

Post Number: 1234
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Saturday, March 24, 2007 - 5:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

As long as it's not another Jonathan Witz production ...please, oh gods...

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