MOUNT VERNON — Through its history, the Dan Emmett Music & Arts Festival has been a harbinger of some of Mount Vernon’s better known institutions, including the Farmer’s Market and Chautauqua.
Building on its own merits, the festival has been with the community for more than 50 years and seen its share of changes.
The first year it became known as The Dan Emmett Music & Arts Festival was 1988, announced with its new name in a letter from Timothy S. Tyler, president of the Knox County Renaissance Foundation, titled “Welcome to the 33rd Dan Emmett Music & Arts Festival.” In 1987, though, it was just called “Dixie Days.” The Renaissance Foundation, which had been organizing the festival, believed Mount Vernon and Knox County to be “a place whose environment is rivaled by only one thing ... its potential.” Since 33 years before 1988 was the Sesquicentennial celebration of Mount Vernon, which was marked with a parade, re-enactments, a photography contest and more, maybe we just got addicted to celebrating our hometown.
The quilt show, increasingly popular over the years, started back in the “Dixie Days” of 1984. Also established from the festival’s earlier days were a banjo workshop, fiddle contest, square dancing, craft demonstrations and tours of the historic Woodward Opera House, as well as a queen pageant, talent show and auto show.
Athletic events came and went through the years, with a basketball shooting tournament starting up in 1989, building through its fourth year but fizzling out afterward. The Mount Vernon Classic, a bicycle race initially started as its own event, became attached to the festival in 2000 and continued to have a strong turnout at least through 2003 when there was also a Police Mountain Bike Competition held on Public Square during the festivities. In later years Pelotonia came through the area around the same time as the festival. The United Way 5-Mile Run which started in 1994 evolved around the turn of the century into an annual 5K and Fun Run to fund a different cause.
Baby Crawl contests were a fun “athletic” enterprise as it held court during the mid-90s.
What would the festival be without music?
Not only does the festival draw big musical acts for concert-goers, it has acted as a consistent showcase of local talent. Local music groups and solo artists of all genres and ages have been able to find a stage at the festival, either as acts, as a part of a showcase or as contestants in one of the contests. The Youth Talent Showcase started in the mid-90s. The banjo workshop from “Dixie Days” became a banjo contest in the early ’90s and by the late ’90s there was a guitar contest, too.
One of two successful additions to the festival made in 2006 was Knox Idol, a natural evolution from the Lip Sync contest which preceded it. By 2013, the organizers were holding auditions for the competition separately and only showcasing the finalists during the festival.
The other 2006 addition was a Cheer Competition, the festival’s first non-musical performing arts contest. There were non-musical performing arts before — with exhibitions from Panther Kenpo Karate Studio and Carole Dance Studio in the ’90s, adding Spotlight Dance Center and Taylor’s Dance Academy in the 2000s. Over the years, demonstrations given by Step Into Fitness and yoga studios have even featured into the festival’s entertainment.
On the non-performing “arts” side of the festival, circa 1998 there was the Juried Invitational Fine Arts and Craft Show, the Sidewalk Sale and Farmers’ Market on the Square. The Farmers’ Market became a summer-long Saturday event soon afterward.
The Homemades and Trades Show started in 2000 and in 2003 the Knox County Art League took control over the fine arts division of the festival and added a Children’s Creative Arts Tent. That became the Children’s Fair by 2008. By 2013 this side of the festival was expanded to a three-day Juried Fine Arts and Handcrafts Fair and a four-day Arts and Trades Show.
The Flower Show started in 1993 and quickly became as popular as the always-favorite quilt show, and ran for more than 20 years.
The festival is also a celebration of our history.
The classic cars have been a staple of the festival, expanding to include motorcycles in 2002 and a “cruise around” in 2003.
Living history, what we now experience through Chautauqua every month, was another staple of the festival, along with Civil War re-enactments along the Kokosing River at least as far back as 1993, then returning in the 2000s, and tours of both The Woodward Opera House and the Dan Emmett House. There have been Civil-War period dances and parades and exhibits through the years.
There was also a presentation of “The Community Within: Black Experience in Knox County,” at the Knox County Historical Society in 1993 with Kenyon College professors Ric Sheffield and Howard Sacks, whose students researched and made the exhibit in their American Studies Seminar to address the African American experience in small-town life, concentrating on Mount Vernon. Special museum hours were set for the festival that year and every year afterward the museum became a feature of the festival, joining together with The Mid Ohio Transit Authority to provide free transportation between the museum and the rest of the festival in 1998.
Other trademarks of the festival have been the auctions — both the cake auction for the Red Cross which started in the mid-90s and the bell auction which sold 12 identical and specially-crafted hand bells to help fund the festival — and the presentation of the Unsung Hero award since 2002.
Many other events came and went over the years. Getting word out, there were full pamphlets made, phone systems set up to field questions, replaced by websites built and scrapped and rebuilt by others elsewhere. No part of this festival is set in stone. It is re-defined each year, carrying forward with the idea that it will be better than the year before, with some hits and some misses, but persistence. To quote Tyler again, “Ceaseless efforts to grow and prosper makes the quality of life improve for everyone, and encourages each new generation to reach for their dreams.”
Dan Emmett Festival has uncertain future, but a strong past
The Dan Emmett Music & Arts Festival has faced the question of whether its existence can continue before — just as the 2019 festival finds itself facing that question today.
It has had its good years and bad, but continued on it has.
Many new ideas have been introduced and tried in the decades of the festival’s existence, some becoming permanent fixtures while others faded away.
Its focus has changed several times. Not long ago the heart of the festival was a flourishing arts show; in its earliest form as Dixie Days the festival featured rides for kids while their folks hit sidewalk sales put on by downtown merchants. Music is the bread and butter of the last several years.
Pat and Sandy Crow served as volunteer directors of the festival for more than 20 years until stepping down last month. With only a few months to go before the scheduled 2019 opening date of Aug. 8, their departure has left the festival with an uncertain future.
Looking back, however, Pat Crow said the significant increase of youth musical performances over the years stands out to him as being one of the stronger additions to the festival.
“Over the years, we’ve made it so that over the course of the festival, over 700 people are on stage, whether it’s for one song or a half hour long set. Seventy-five percent of those people are under the age of 18,” Pat said.
“You can’t replicate that experience in a studio or in a choir room,” Pat said. “If young people want to pursue a career as a choir director or even as a performer, having that performance experience in front of an audience is essential.”
Pat and Sandy’s departure has caused some debate as to whether the festival should be on for this year. Some representatives of the festival have suggested taking 2019 off, then bringing it back in 2020. Others are for pushing on.
Auctioneer Jerry Scott has been an emcee at the festival for 25 years. Scott said that the Dan Emmett Music & Arts Festival almost died about five years in and charity organizations kept it alive as a springboard for the Woodward Opera House. Scott believes now that the Woodward is up and running, maybe Dan Emmett will find new purpose and a new direction.
“All things change,” he said. “Maybe the festival needs to evolve and that’s OK.”
Scott also said opening the stages to younger acts has been a big plus over the years.
City Safety-Service Director Joel Daniels has
witnessed the benefit of musical opportunities for kids. His son, Blake, performed in a youth act some years ago.
“Kids can get on stage and perform and it’s a safe, friendly environment,” Daniels said. “Getting up there in front of a crowd of strangers can be intimidating. Here, they are among friends.”
The city of Mount Vernon has provided its streets as the festival’s venue, surrendering the town for four days. Accordingly, city officials have long been involved in the infrastructure side of things, but some have gone further and gotten involved in other ways.
Mayor Richard Mavis is an ex-officio member of the festival board. Years ago, he helped introduce sporting events to the festival, including half-court basketball. One of the events, a five-mile run, has since been taken over by an outside group as a 5K.
Mavis is of the opinion that the festival should go forward this year. If the festival stops for a year with the goal of coming back in 2020, that goal is not likely to be met, he said.
“Everything that has been added will be lost,” Mavis said.
Sally Wright, owner of Flowers for You, has been a sponsor of the festival for 30-plus years. She said the headline acts are a good draw to downtown that also garners attention to local businesses. Ideally, Wright said, the people who come out for the shows will be back again to shop downtown.
“They always seem to do very well in securing somebody that brings people to town, and we can showcase our town,” Wright said.
The festival does not suffer from a lack of interest. It draws big crowds who come in to eat at the food trucks and lunch stands, enjoy music, games, and the other events.
Main Street Mount Vernon Director Carrie Hyman said her organization keeps no data on the impact of the festival in terms of bringing revenue to businesses. How those businesses would fare without a festival weekend is unknown.
“Speaking on behalf of the Main Street Mount Vernon board we have not yet had the opportunity to wrap our arms around the full extent and impact that not having a festival would have on downtown Mount Vernon and the Mount Vernon community,” Hyman said. “We value what the festival has contributed in the past and are open to dialogue with our partners about this year and beyond.”
