The annual Ithaca Festival returns this weekend, promising some new twists on a local event that since 1977 has been “celebrating the artist in everyone.”
This year’s festival theme is “Mix It Up,” which seems appropriate on several levels. First, there’s a new festival director: Ben “Barnaby” Greenberg, who has managed the band Donna The Buffalo for almost 20 years.
Second, the festival itself is only three days this year, with the parade taking place on Friday night; it starts at 6:30 p.m. on North Cayuga Street and will precede an 8:30 p.m. concert by the Horse Flies at the Bernie Milton Stage on the Commons.
Third, the festival footprint is expanding from downtown Ithaca to the new park across from the Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC) on West Court Street.
And fourth, this will be the first festival on the newly renovated Ithaca Commons, which reopened late last summer after nearly three years of construction.
“The idea of mixing it up is two-fold,” said Greenberg. “We’re looking at the festival with new eyes and have been open to making changes. And we’re looking for ways to draw new people out to the festival. For example, we’re going to have a charity basketball game at the GIAC courts at the same time a concert is happening on the nearby stage. It’s looking for ways to mix people together to expose them to new things on all sides.”
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As for the Friday parade, Greenberg noted that, again, it was a way of potentially bringing new people to the festival, as well as channeling some of its energy to downtown.
“It allows people to travel in from a couple of hours away, and makes the festival more of a destination,” he said. “Coming out of the parade, there’s all this energy — people are all revved up — and then it past years it just would disperse. We thought it would be a celebratory evening to have that all flow into the Commons for the Horse Flies. It makes a wonderful transition of energy to the rest of the festival.”
Bringing GIAC into the festival mix also is an important new element this year.
“The partnership with GIAC came out when I was playing in summer basketball league in that park — it’s a wonderful community event, they really do it right,” Greenberg said. “I saw that GIAC typically did its own festival a week later, and though would we’d be able to collaborate well together.
“That space looked primed to do something — it’s a way of softening up festival with some more grass, and help people to spend the day. And it’s just a few blocks away from the Commons. So we’re connecting that route with pony rides and the Physics Bus and activities from art clubs to make that walk interesting for people.”
The festival will feature more than 90 bands performing on a variety of stages downtown and at GIAC, as well as hundred of other painters, dancers, clowns and other artists throughout the weekend. Among the bands performing are the Blind Spots, the New York Rock, the Gunpoets, the Sim Redmond Band and dozens of other local favorites. Visit www.ithacafestival.org for the complete lineup and schedule.
A new beginning
Besides managing Donna the Buffalo, Greenberg has produced big concerts and festivals across the country, including Los Angeles, Dallas and Miami. But when the Ithaca Festival director job opened up last fall, the Binghamton native was ready to move back to upstate New York.
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“I thought it would be a nice way for me to embed myself in the community, get to know Ithaca and have a nice change of pace,” he said. “I really have always felt that Ithaca was the place where I’ve felt most connected. This was an opportunity to offer the skill set I’ve developed over the years and help out the festival.”
Part of that involves helping the festival shore up its finances. “People often don’t realize that’s not run by city — it’s its own entity — and the finances have been very unstable in the past at times,” Greenberg said. “So we’ve gotten more aggressive about increasing sponsorships and applying for grants. Tompkins County Tourism Boart gave us a grant this year, which has been hugely helpful, and some other sponsors have jumped aboard. It’s a community event and you need every bit of that kind of support for it to be successful.”
Greenberg still remembers how he was blown away by the Ithaca music scene when he first discovered it in the mid-1990s. “As teen I wanted to be in the FBI, but when I came across this scene up here, it had a huge impact on my life,” he said. “So it really means a lot to me to come back here and do this job. I really believe in the power of the artists here, and what they express. It’s why I’m excited to be here doing this.”
If You Go
•What: Ithaca Festival of the Arts
•When: Friday through Sunday
•Where: The Commons, Greater Ithaca Activities Center and points in between
•Tickets: free to attend; support the festival by buying a button, T-shirt or other merchandise.
