Not their first rodeo

Grand American Fish Rodeo builds on last year

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The Grand American Fish Rodeo, Lansing’s fledgling festival dedicated to high lighting the city’s waterways, kicks off its second year this weekend. The festival was founded, at least in part, to put the spotlight on one of the city’s great resources: the Grand River.

“We have an awesome river,” said Terry Terry, founder and president of MessageMakers and organizer of the festival.

“People need to see the river, to see what a treasure we have.”

Entering its second year, the festival is trying to build on last year. A young festival fighting for its place in a crowded slate of regional festivals, the Fish Rodeo is hoping that its mix of water-themed activities and festival fare will catch on with Lansing residents.

While attendance wasn’t particularly strong last year, the festival’s layout didn’t help the matter. With events scattered throughout the sprawling Adado Riverfront Park, the festival lacked the sense of energy that the crowded festivals of Old Town and East Lansing have.

“We were pretty spread out last year,” Terry said, noting that this year’s layout will be more condensed.

The biggest change to this year’s festival, however, is the evening slate of music.

Last year’s festival featured two evenings of country music. This year leans heavily on local artists, featuring regional favorites like Root Doctor, Greg Nagy and Kevin Nichols & Blue Tuesday.

“The bands we selected will draw people in,” Terry said.

While the evening’s music slate has changed focus, the Saturday afternoon entertainment lineup will still feature multi-cultural performances — a holdover from the festival’s past life as the diversity-driven Michigan Mosaic Music Festival.

Saturday afternoon’s performances will highlight the region’s diversity, comprising Irish, Native American, Hispanic and Middle Eastern music and dancing performed by Mid-Michigan-based groups.

Other popular activities from last year’s festival will return for the second year.

“The fishing tournament was great last year,” said Terry. “We’re bringing that back.”

Other returning events include riverboat rides on the Grand River and an educational tent for kids.

While attendance was low at last year’s festival, Terry is not discouraged.

“We’re used to the huge numbers of JazzFest and Blues- Fest,” Terry said. “We’re trying to build this slowly, we know it takes time to build.”

While the JazzFest and BluesFest websites estimates that each festival draws some 7,000 people to Lansing’s Old Town, Terry said he would be thrilled with a fraction of that at this year’s Fish Rodeo.

“If we had a few thousand people, that would be awesome,” he said.

While attendance numbers are important in terms of festival sustainability, Terry views these first few years as a chance to establish an identity to build on.

“We achieved all of our pilot year objectives,” said Terry, noting that branding, marketing strategy and logistics are all major hurdles for a new festival.

Whether the Fish Rodeo will ever enjoy the popularity of JazzFest and Bluesfest remains to be seen, but Terry is confident in the concept.

“We’ve got a great outdoor party right on the river,” Terry said. “Right in downtown Lansing.”

Grand American Fish Rodeo

10 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Friday, June 12; 8 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Saturday, June 13 FREE Adado Riverfront Park, Lansing grandamericanfishrodeo.com

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