Festivals are one of the best public relations tools for any community and Clarksdale does them well.
Think about this: People come to Clarksdale for a day or two, eat at our restaurants, stay in our hotels and buy from our stores as they take in the Blues. Then they go home and tell all their friends what a great time they had.
Having worked a couple of festivals in the short time I have been here, I always tell people to “come back next year n’ bring somebody with ya,” in my best Southern drawl.
Our tourism commission has been quoted as saying one of their goals is to get that first time, one-night visitor to come back and stay two nights next year.
And if we accomplish those things these festivals grow exponentially and the word gets out about this place we call home.
Visitors
I hesitate to call them tourist.
They are people, visitors and hopefully future friends of mine.
That same tourism commission mentioned above, says we can’t look at “tourist” like they have dollar signs in their eyes.
Please remember this is the South where we are polite to a fault, where we sincerely want to welcome people to town and truly get to know them.
I would also like to point out when people are approached like that, they look around and see the precious gift we have been handed with the blues and a courteous, hospitality culture.
It’s how we have attracted some of the movers and shakers to invest in our downtown. It is also how we have gotten true artist and those blessed with creative thinking to move to Clarksdale.
Festival fun
I was involved in the Prairie Art Festival in my hometown of West Point. I watched Prairie Art grow from a simple arts and crafts show where people sold jams and jellies to an event that now draw over 600 vendors selling everything from jams and jellies to fine art and hand-crafted furniture.
West Point swells to 30,000 people on Labor Day weekend. We hosted my 25th, 30th and 40th Class Reunion on Labor Day weekend and we all swelled with pride in what our little hometown has done.
In Dyersburg Tenn., it was the Dogwood Festival. Dyersburg is built on a square with a grand old courthouse smack dab in the middle of town.
It’s a great place to host a festival and downtown stores do big business on Dogwood Festival weekend each spring.
In Texas it had a pioneer/cowboy theme and was called Midlothian Roundup. They hosted a rodeo and FFA stock show and every rancher and urbanite who proudly called themselves a Texans pulled on their boots and cowboy hat and came to town.
Future festivals
We have Juke Joint in the spring, Sunflower Festival in the summer and the new Mighty Roots Festival in the fall.
Clarksdale needs a winter festival.
Let’s hold a big daylong series of concerts at City Auditorium We could bring high profile acts to this event and sell tickets at a premium.
Think of the biggest names in Blues and that is the kind of musicians we want. Let’s make it our fourth signature event.
I’m a promoter of Clarksdale, but not a music event promoter. There obviously are details to be worked out. But the seed has been planted. Let’s see who can make it bloom.
Prior to the pandemic, Clarksdale was hosting some kind of music festival about once a month. COVID killed tourism and it is slowly being revived in Clarksdale and nationally.
This town knows how to have fun, welcome people and have a good time with them. It is a gift.
We have a special talent for putting on festivals. We need to always do our very best to show the world why Clarksdale is one of the most special places on Earth.
Floyd Ingram is Editor of your Clarksdale Press Register. He is not a native of Clarksdale, but he visited this town on a festival weekend and fell in love with the place. Email him at floyd@pressregister.com with your Clarksdale love story.
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