For those of you who aren’t Ashevillians, this is Bele Chere weekend here. Bele Chere touts itself as the biggest annual street festival in the Southeast. This year they predict around 375,000 people will visit. There are five or six stages with both local and national musical acts performing half of Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday. Last night one of the acts was the Gin Blossoms.
There are arts and crafts booths galore, beer tents, food offerings, marketing competitions (courtesy of the radio stations, of course), an Urban Challenge modeled on the Survivor television series, a kids’ area, Air Dog performances, and this year, the Budweiser Clydesdale Horses will strut through town. It’s all good drunken fun. Except when it’s not.
I wandered through town for about an hour yesterday afternoon and got a teensy taste of Bele Chere.
Love this guy’s bike setup and the decor!
This couple just stood there, dressed funny, and people put $ into their basket.
Air dog! Damn Ingles with their huge trucks all over the place (background).
The local microbrew tent. I’ll be nearby tonight.
I posted some pics of Saturday and Friday (and some videos). My stuff was mostly music related, but I highly recommend the redneck karaoke from Friday … a must see.
For lots of great Bele Chere photos, visit our flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/belechere/.
A street fair with beer tents
A choice of radio stations and not just Big WISE or WWNC
It’s clearly not the same place i grew up in and left in 1976