The Festivals are Here!

Welcome to our first October article and the beginning of any comfort level that comes with the weather in Central Florida starting to make outdoor gatherings more of a pleasant experience. Although the 100-degree-plus days are generally past us, the arrival of Autumn in Central Florida doesn’t give relief just right away. With cooler nights for outdoor activities here let's look at some of the festivals that are coming in the few weeks of sunshine we have left so that we can look at this vibrant way that we attract visitors and come out of our homes as a community to gather and celebrate together.

October 7 and 8 is the 50th anniversary of the Autumn Sidewalk Art Festival in Winter Park. Twice a year Winter Park gives up its pristine Central Park location amongst the finest luxury clothiers and jewelers in the entire area to the artists that fill its lawns with tents of artworks spanning almost every variety of style and taste. This event is a walk-up event with vendors scattered about with the typical sideshow fare. This is one of the festivals that Central Florida embraces to bring more of a cultural flavor to living here. Residents and visitors alike can find one-of-a-kind original pieces, usually with the artist present and it lends to be able to get personalization of their art at the festival which isn’t the easiest to get in a traditional art gallery. We take our tours to see art museums and art galleries in this area so when they have their twice-a-year “convention” event it’s a showcase. With so many of our local attractions being based on false narratives and re-creations of animations for incorporating them into “rides” or “experiences” built on hollow rocks and painted rust, this artistic expression throws the same local artists as well as those who travel to see us, into the traditional veins or artistry and allows them to showcase their talents in those mediums (sculpture, mosaic, paint, etc.). This is one of the events that you are warned that it's going to hit your pocketbook, but it’s a testament to the people who want to embrace one-of-a-kind or collectible pieces for their life and environment to immerse themselves in a surrounding that has work that speaks to their life. As a local, these Winter Park events are usually where locals meet up with familiar friendly faces. In contrast to the over 50 million visitors that come to Central Florida for tourism and commerce, the local area population including the surrounding metro and suburban areas comes in only at 1.5 million people. With hundreds of thousands of people attending over the multi-day time frame of the sidewalk art festivals, they are a great opportunity to run into people you know to network, socialize, or as they do in Winter Park… “Be Seen”.

October 14 brings Latin Fest to the Orlando Heritage Festival Park. Our Latin community is uniquely diverse with so many visitors who come to the area settling in in Orlando as their home. Miami has a massive Spanish-speaking infrastructure but only recently has that culture permeated into the local area where bi-lingual business has become more the norm. Latin businesses and communities have formed from general exodus and transition into the area, and events like Hurricane Maria that devastated Puerto Rico brought our friends to relocate in the tens of thousands on more than one occasion. So when Orlando/Celebrates its Latin community and its Heritage it’s significant. A predominantly Spanish-only festival, stage presentations, and speakers aim to take care to have the bi-lingual inclusivity they would criticize others for omitting. This is the 1st Latin Fest (although others have been successful throughout the year) from this promotion group but with a professional lineup of musical acts and local community members networking and bringing diversity to the area.

October 21 is Come Out with Pride a day of Love downtown at the Lake Eola Park. One of the largest Pride festivals in the Southeastern United States it is a festival of vendors, music, activism, health outreach, Pulse Shooting memoriam and coping, and a chance without judgment for the people who want to be able to talk to their children using the word Gay to be without persecution. Its highlight event The Most Colorful Parade is a showcase of hundreds of local businesses who come out in major force. With so much urban blight in San Francisco and changes to the political climate that has put Orlando at the forefront as a community of tolerance, it is an event that congeals the community whether alternative lifestyle or not. Disney World fell under so much attack this year that the entire tourism community felt its pressures and devastation with the July month of tourism leaving the hospitality industry in economic shambles. This event is the first major opportunity for Disney and its workers to frame and promote the messages and approach to bringing to an end the disparity amongst social classes because of their lifestyle choices in love. These events are promoted on the light poles with banners and posters promoting the inclusion so prepare for the rainbow to paint downtown once again.

October 28 is the Thornton Park Halloween block party. Halloween is a cosplay adventure in itself but with this Thornton Park event, it's geared towards the adults as a predominantly party/alcohol/festival event. For those of you who are not familiar with Downtown Orlando, the centralized area with events and congregation occurs in two main areas… Orange Avenue Central with Church Street Station, Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center, and Wall Street Plaza being our traditional gathering points. The other is Lake Eola Park which has resurfaced its lawns this year to match the patterns of pop-up tents and aisles that the numerous festivals and gatherings throughout the year bring not to damage its greenery. If you take a one-block walk East of the edge of the park, you are in Thornton Park a bohemian downtown area with fountains in roundabouts on streets lined with pubs you bike or scooter to. A mix of old Spanish houses and brick streets its upscale allure is a great place for a festive party. Closing off the streets and maintaining a pub crawl feel, this Halloween block party will bring an adult event to the holiday a few days before the actual trick-or-treating occurs with our younger co-players.

So for the next several weekends, there are major events that serve as an alternative fashion that Central Florida is not only attractive to its residents who take pride in living in an area diverse enough to promote individuals and their differences, but to have major celebrations that these differences are a reason that the community is strong. For decades visitors from all over the world come to the area, fallen in love with it, and then re-locate and become a builder of the community adding their blocks of commerce, culture, heritage, and inclusivity to an ecosystem that thrives on it’s inclusion. Every single one of these festivals rolls out the welcome mat to all members of communities that aren’t theirs to come and learn and celebrate with them in an environment that is conducive to relationship building and finding common threads in our lives. Each of these events is wide open to international travelers, domestic visitors, and local residents alike. Whereas only one of these events, the Halloween Block party is a holiday event, the rest of the month does not take time off and it has a wealth of choices that begin to show signs we are expanding with balance again.

Later in the year, we are going into the traditional holiday festivals with events such as the Thanksgiving Parades, Christmas Events, Holidays in the Park, Festivals of Lights… and so on. With those focusing on the traditional themed celebrations, we have a chance in October to gather together before then and meet our new friends that we will be spending the holidays and time with later in the year. It’s ridiculous to say that all the events are appealing to everyone, however its more important that as we grow into a community that is more than service-based, we recognize that the community is diverse to be built from, and we recognize that by gathering and sharing we grow stronger, faster, and entwine a lasting strength through the friendships we make at these festivals that continues to give to our lives throughout the year as a result.

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