Lansing — Combine more than 20 wine and beer stations, food from a few of the city's different restaurants and eateries, four bands of various genres and an enormous mass of buzzing festivalgoers. What do you get?
This year's Festival of the Sun in Old Town, brought residents from Mid-Michigan together with spirits, soul and swagger.
Robert Busby, event staff member and local owner of Old Town's Creole Gallery, 1218 Turner St., was pleased by the turnout and events that took place during the festival.
"From the very first moment the gate opened, we had people lined up," Busby said. "It has just been slowly aggregating to what we have now."
At about 8 p.m. Saturday, Busby noted the tasting tent was packed wall-to-wall, and the event had drawn quite an impressive number of people partaking in both the beverages and the music.
"Until the tickets run out, people will continue to come in," he said. "It'll just be unbelievable because this is the time when people like to dance. People get a few drinks in them, and they want to dance."
Having been on the first festival committee, Busby has been a supporter of the festival since its beginning. Another longtime supporter of the event is Mike Eyia.
Eyia is the front man of Ritmo, Lansing's own dance-based Latin salsa jazz band. Ritmo has closed out the event with their energetic sound for the past four or five years, he said.
"It's just an incredible thing," Eyia said. "People will be here when we're supposed to play for an hour, but invariably for the past three or four years, we've played for two hours because people just go crazy.
"We get a lot of energy from this particular venue. For some reason, I don't know if it's the wine, but people just get a lot more into it here. It's a lot of fun."
Festival coordinators wanted to bring visitors to Old Town and help stimulate local businesses, in addition to throwing a great party.
Absolute Gallery owner Kathy Holcomb talked about the effect that the festival has on her business, located at 307 E. Grand River Ave., and the mood of the day's events.
"What the festivals do best is bring in customers who have never been to the gallery before," she said.
Holcomb said she usually gets returning customers throughout the weeks following the festival because people become interested in the gallery's services.
"It's just a great event," Busby said. "We do this every year, and it has just been getting better and better … We get bigger crowds every year. It has just become one of the premier wine tasting festivals, I believe, in Michigan," he said.
