Freedom Park Freedom Park is a 98-section of the land park in Charlotte, North Carolina. Situated at 1900 East Boulevard, between Charlotte’s memorable Dilworth and Myers Park areas, the park is focused on a 7-section of land lake and is around 3 miles (4.8 km) from the core of Charlotte’s midtown region.

The Park has cleared path, tennis/volleyball courts, sport/athletic fields, and jungle gym gear. The Park contains a 2-8-0 steam motor that is fenced and has wellbeing bars added over the delicate, yet one can stroll into the taxi. In prior years the train was open and children could hop on top of it and under it. During that time frame, there were two fire motors with an older style handle wrench before the motor. Both fire engines had the inner parts and back hose region open for youngsters to investigate, play and learn. There used to be an F-86 Saber fly warrior there and a military tank that children could play on.

Free movies and melodic exhibitions in the parking structure are included all through the summer.] Every September Freedom Park is the site of the five-day-long Festival in the Park, which yearly draws in more than 100,000 guests, and has been perceived as a Top 20 Event by the Southeast Tourism Society. Nearby Freedom Park is the Charlotte Nature Museum, a fun and learning community for little youngsters worked by Discovery Place, which displays creatures and plants of the Piedmont locale.

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of the Festival in the Park is to unite the local area through human expression and give all residents of Charlotte/Mecklenburg admittance to multi-media visual and performing craftsmanship at no charge.

PURPOSE

Consistent with the vision of its author, the late A. Award Whitney, the Festival is expected to give something to everybody. The celebration, with an accentuation on variety across all ages, races, and ideologies, advances proficient and novice visual and performing craftsmen. Through people, group exceeds, the celebration has numerous adolescents and instructive associations.

HISTORY

Celebration In the Park started in 1964 when John Belk, then, at that point, President of the Chamber of Commerce proposed to Grant Whitney, a protection leader with Belk Stores Services, to make expressions show in Freedom Park. The possibility of a spring workmanship show had been thrown around the earlier year by the Chamber yet had not appeared.

With the idea from Ms. Ernest Franklin of the Chamber’s Fine Arts Committee to tailor a celebration after Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens, Grant explored the climate and tracked down that the fall season in Charlotte would be a superior time for the external show, as it is ordinarily dry in September. The date was set to be the third week in September. Since the start, just 6 days have been cut short, except for the Hugo year.

The main Festival was supported by the Chamber of Commerce with a financial plan of $4,000 which purchased the primary tents. Award found an organization in Statesville to make the happy and beautiful “Camelot” designed tents that have turned into the celebration’s brand name.

In its first year, there were ten tents of shows, a craftsmanship display, and a couple of exhibitions on the stage. Art people were elusive in the good ‘old days. From this start, the celebration has developed to its current extent of more than 100 tents, more than 80 boards of workmanship showed on canopied board sheets, five little stages, the park’s bandshell, a youngsters’ “active” expressions and artworks region, and different uncommon action/execution regions. It has since become known as Charlotte’s “Granddaddy” celebration.

The Chamber of Commerce chose not to keep supporting the occasion after the primary year. Had it not been for Grant Whitney’s industriousness, the celebration would have kicked the bucket. The achievement of the principal Festival so interested him that he attempted the next year. With John Belk’s endorsement, Whitney and his staff set up a Board of Directors from the exceptional municipal innovators in Charlotte, enlisted the celebration as a non-benefit association, and continued to fund-raise from the board individuals, organizations, and companions to support the celebration.

He enrolled help from the city and they partook by outfitting firefighters to set up and bring down the actual courses of action and outfitting police security.

All along, the occasion was family-situated and no cocktails or profane displays or exhibitions have been permitted. It was totally free to everybody – with something for everybody – paying little mind to race, doctrine, or position throughout everyday life. The celebration’s central goal has consistently been to bring the entirety of human expression and specialties to however many individuals as could reasonably be expected, totally for nothing, in an informal environment of magnificence.

In the early years, exhibitors didn’t pay for space and were not allowed to sell. They were needed to show their specialty or art determined to teach individuals about the Arts. As the Festival developed, costs expanded and it became important to charge the exhibitors an expense, which brought about consent to sell their products. Moreover, the oil ban of the 1970s expanded travel expenses and made it hard to draw in quality craftsmen without considering expressions and special deals.

Throughout the long-term bunches from different urban communities have visited during the celebration week to assemble thoughts on beginning their own show. Numerous different celebrations have been designed after this unique one.

Celebration in the Park has given many gifts to the local area. An underground electrical framework was introduced at Freedom Park, with work and materials given by many organizations on the side of the celebration’s requirement for lighting. The celebration regulated the finishing of the Band Shell, notwithstanding walkways and amphitheater seating. None of this might have been refined without the many volunteers and gifts got at the earnestness of Grant Whitney.

Members in these undertakings are too various to even consider referencing. One gathering, the neighborhood electrical technician association, made the celebration their significant undertaking every year, as they attach the electrical support of each tent, stage, and so on, and are available all through Festival week to fix and supplant gear. This is assistance for which the celebration would never bear to pay.

THE YEAR OF HUGO

Hugo showed up on the third evening of the celebration in 1989. Award Whitney, paying attention to standard climate refreshes, requested all exhibitors and entertainers to leave the Park, taking their significant displays with them hours before the Hurricane was to strike. When the exhibitors left, Grant requested the celebration staff to drop the tents and destroy the stages to get ready for the tempest’s effect. By 1:00 am on Friday morning, the celebration was ready for Hugo’s invasion. Nobody might have anticipated the heavy tempest that desolated the park that Friday morning. A walk around Freedom Park on Friday evening had an enduring effect of the tempest’s pulverization… trees removed, tents drifting on the lake, board sheets blown into the forest, stages blown separated, and trash from adjoining homes heaved over the park’s scene. Award’s foreknowledge and administration limited the harm that destroyed the celebration and empowered the celebration coordinators to refocus and start getting ready for the next year’s celebration, which would be Grant’s last in charge.

THE NEW LEADERSHIP – THE TRANSITIONAL YEARS

Award resigned from Belk in 1987, however not from the celebration. To guarantee its continuation, he recognized a couple of new and more youthful administration volunteers to foster similar energy and enthusiasm for the Arts. He directed their turn of events and moved his insight and love for the celebration. The year after Hugo, 1990, was his last dynamic year with the celebration. Starting in 1991, the new authority and a significant number of Grant’s unique gatekeepers swore their obligation to proceed with this local area treasure. To start the new administration, a few impediments emerged to test their obligation to the celebration.

In 1992 the city redesigned and revamped the lake, annihilating the celebration’s electrical and mechanical framework. Because of development delays, the celebration had to move to the ball fields as a stopgap impermanent area. When the lake project was finished, the celebration needed to contract, introduce, and pay for another best-in-class electrical framework by the kickoff of the following Festival.

In 1993, the City and County blended their Parks and Recreation Departments, requiring the celebration administration to reconsider all agreements and start new associations with all-new Park staff. Subsequently, the celebration consented to diminish the number of days from six to four and consented to introduce a mainline water system framework around Freedom Park’s Lake.

In 1994, the celebration’s board had no real option except to defer the celebration because of the Park’s choice to rebuild the fundamental passageway of Freedom Park and to up-fit the ball fields. The Board utilized this off-year as a chance to survey its main goal and revive the celebration soul.

1995, the festival was almost cut short, testing the endurance of the re-energized board. Since that occasion, the 1996 and 1997 releases had great climate and participation developed every year to approach record extents, featuring the adolescent diversion accentuation. In 1997, Festival in the Park was granted a Top 200 Festival Status by Sunshine Artists Magazine.

TODAY’S FESTIVAL

The celebration presently has one paid staff part, a few occasional workers, and many volunteers, including a Festival Board of Directors and authoritative councils. It invites more than 180 craftsmen, almost 1,000 performers for a packed three-day occasion. Mecklenburg County Parks and Recreation Department, nearby city and tuition-based schools, the neighborhood electrical technician’s association, a few key supporters, the nearby media, and many neighborhood volunteers guarantee the celebration engages the 85,000 or more who join in.

As the Festival is a non-benefit adventure and is in huge part self-supporting with no entryway income, gathered sponsorship and raising money reprise