General Festival Information

Donations Invited

The amazing sights and sounds of BluesFest can be enjoyed for free—even the best seats in front of the stages! And your gift can help to keep it that way. Please look for the bucket brigade and drop in your cash donation, or visit michiganbluesfest.com to donate online by credit card or PayPal.

The Turnaround Lounge

The location of this large tent lets you follow acts as they rotate between the main stages, from the Lounge’s allweather covered comfort or open patios. The wristband you get for your modest $5 daily admission charge will let you explore the vendor area and events happening off-stage, and return to the Lounge as often as you want. This is also the only location on festival grounds where you can buy alcoholic beverages. Soft drinks are also sold.

Beer & Wine choices

We hope you’ll enjoy the following beverage choices offered by Blue Moon Trailer (subject to change):

Cans:

Miller Lite Miller Lite Coors Light Leinenkugel Anniversary Lager Labatt Blue Blue Moon Belgian White Redd’s Apple Ale Frankenmuth Oktoberfest Atwater Vanilla Java Porter Lansing Brewing Co. Amber Cream Atwater Dirty Blonde Elison Cressent Fresh IPA Uncle John’s Hard Cider Grand River Monkey Mouth IPA

Wine List:

Draft:

Copa Di Vino Moscato Copa Di Vino Cabernet Cherry Creek Cranberry Passion Cherry Creek Old School House Red Cherry Creek Wood Duck Riesling

Food Vendors

(Subject to change) Amist Lemonades Anishnabe Meejim- Native American Cinnamon Nuts & More Clint’s Hot Dogs Cottage Inn Pizza Eastside Fish Fry Maria’s Tacos Smoke ‘n Pig BBQ

Retail Vendors

(Subject to change) ABS Clothing BluesFest 2017 t-shirts Ms. Laura’s Art Gallery Providence Chiropractic Saniyas Collection Sisters Creative Design Sunshine Apparel Thrd Generation Unique Crochet by Edna Vibration Creations

Accessibility

Lansing BluesFest cares for those with disabilities in the following ways. As an outdoor street festival, the festival venue is naturally wheelchair accessible. Specially marked meters along both sides of E. Grand River are reserved for handicap permit holders, and an adjacent City lot (see below) offers some fully accessible spots. Wheelchair-accessible restrooms are available.

Parking

Lot 56 at the south end of Turner St., just across E. Grand River Ave from the festival. City’s special event pricing: $7 by cash, local check, credit card for each entry (re-entry incurs new charge) Friday 3-9 pm and Saturday 11am-9pm. Other times free access.

KidzBeat 1:00pm-5:00pm

KidzBeat is a range of activities giving kids arts experiences first-hand - through craft projects run by some of the area’s finest artists and arts educators, to playing music themselves at the instrument petting zoo of woodwind and brass instruments, guided by MSU Community Music School, and one-on-one sessions with electric guitar and bass, mentored by professional musicians.

WKAR BackStage Pass

New this year, WKAR will be streaming live each evening from BluesFest. The award-winning WKAR BackStage Pass team will stream the performances of Greg Nagy, with Ray Goodman & Rachel Nagy, and Karen Lovely on Friday and Kathleen Murray & the Groove Council and Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials on Saturday. WKAR personalities will also be sharing updates and artist and fan interviews via Facebook Live each afternoon and evening. Follow WKAR Public Media on Facebook for updates, and view the festival live performances at wkar.org.

This Year’s Artwork

Dennis Preston began illustration work and graphic design in the late ‘60s while still in high school. After graduating, a majority of the work he did was concert posters (mainly the Lansing, Detroit and Flint areas) and advertising (newspaper ads and posters) for local businesses. He recently retired from Lansing Community College after 40 years of teaching. He taught courses in graphic design, lettering and mainly humorous illustration (cartooning). This past year he has put out 4 adult coloring books. Presently, he still freelances and draws caricatures as entertainment at events like class reunions, conventions, holiday parties and more. Besides art, Dennis is into music; recording and jamming with some friends. He has CDs available locally and music up on the internet. He’s currently working on a solo project in which he does all the vocals and plays all the instruments.

To see more of his artwork go to: The Preston (Like my stuff?) Page on Facebook.