This post documents my experience on June 8, 2012.
I’m not that familiar with the city of Canton.
Sure, I’ve been to a few festivals there, but they took place either away from downtown or at the county fairgrounds.Not exactly the best locations to get to know the city..
That’s why, when opportunity knocked, I drove on out to downtown Canton…
…passed the beautiful Canton Palace Theatre…
…and arrived here…
…at the Downtown Canton Blues Festival.
When I first walked onto the festival grounds….
…the princesses from an upcoming festival were being presented to the audience.
This gave me the chance to look around….
…appreciate the bluesy decor…
…take note of who came to the festival…
…and even chat a bit with those more thoroughly involved (Northeast Ohio Blues Association).
The festival setup was like a community concert…
…with people and their lawn chairs prepared for the show.
There was a great assortment of food trucks running down both sides of the crowd…
…and offerings included grassfed beef…
…fried fish…
…BBQ…
…and some nice beer selections.
I actually regretted eating beforehand!
There were only a handful of vendors at the festival…
…selling artistic shirts (The Dreg Spot)…
…festival shirts…
…and sunglasses…
…while the 5-hour energy booth gave free samples for my bigger festival days.
Fortunately, I still had enough energy without the sample to take advantage of my time in downtown Canton….
…admiring the murals…
…sculptures…
…furniture-esque sculptures…
…and locally made photo-op sculptures.
Here, the artist seated above was offering photos with his artwork for $1 – a price I tried to get out of paying.
In my discussion with the man, I tried to offer a website mention on this blog in exchange for the price, but he only countered with a story about his website and how it’s connected to former President Bill Clinton.
In the end, I knew it would be simpler just to pay the buck and snap away, but I wanted to be sure to make full use of that dollar’s value…
…with a closeup shot of the pig…
…and an action shot of him explaining his panther talents to some youths.
Of course…
…once the music got going full swing…
…I realized I could have gotten the shot for free after all.