By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer
Family fun, food and a frolicking good time are on the schedule for Jacksonville’s first FestiVille Friday and Saturday at Dupree Park.
The carnival rides started pulling into the park Monday and will be set up and running this evening and the rides will continue through Saturday night.
The festival, which offers free admission and parking, will open in earnest at noon Friday with about 30 craft and commercial vendors, food trailers and volunteers asking festivalgoers to sign a petition for Jacksonville to get its own school district.
The festival will operate two stages of entertainment Friday and Saturday. Friday night’s headline entertainment is Beebe’s Luke Williams and his band performing about 8 p.m.
Then on Saturday night, starting at 7, will be the Wild Buffalo Wing karaoke finals.
Other events and their times are:
• Mr. and Miss FestiVille pageant rehearsal will be at 5 p.m. Friday on the Festival stage. The pageant, itself will be from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday.
• Registration for the Dupree Lake fishing derby starts at 7:30 a.m. Saturday.
• The 5K run and 1K walk starts at 8 a.m. Saturday.
• Registration for the volleyball tournament starts at 8:30 a.m. Saturday.
• The Canine Cutie Contest will run from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday.
• Students from Sharon’s School of Dance will perform from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday.
• A local martial-arts group will perform twice on Saturday, — from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., then from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m.
• The rock group Eddie and the Defianz will perform at 5 p.m. Saturday.
• Numerous musical groups from Dogtown Media will perform throughout Friday afternoon and Saturday.
• Radio Disney will be performing from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Friday.
• Cool 104.7 will be doing live broadcasts all day Friday and Saturday.
• The carnival will be open tonight, Thursday and Friday evening and all of Saturday. The festival vendors and most food booths will be open from noon to 7 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday.