The 2012 Bele Chere Festival is just around the corner, taking place in downtown Asheville July 27-29. As excitement builds for the big weekend, we are kicking off “Bele Chere: Top 10 Things to Know.” Check back for more as we get closer and closer to the big event! See more information about Bele Chere 2012 [...]
Monday, May 28 saw the commemoration of Memorial Day in a ceremony held on Roger McGuire Green in Pack Square Park and presented by The City of Asheville Mayor’s Committee on Veterans Affairs and Buncombe County. The ceremony commemorates the sacrifice and service that men and women have given in the name of protecting the nation, [...]
ASHEVILLE – Members of the Asheville community, city leaders and staff on Sunday gathered to observe the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The ceremony was led by the Asheville Fire Department and was held in the Ferguson Auditorium of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College. Officials say the total number of people killed in [...]
ASHEVILLE – The 2011 edition of the African-Caribbean “Goombay!” festival once again drew hundreds of people to the Eagle/Market Streets area, the historic heart of Asheville’s black community. Each year for three days, Goombay fills Eagle and Market – also called The Block – with marching bands, African-America dancers, stilt walkers, as well as gospel, reggae [...]
The City of Asheville and the Bele Chere entertainment selection committee have announced the lineup of the 2011 Bele Chere Festival, to be held July 29-31 in downtown Asheville. 42 acts, more than half of whom are local or regional acts, will perform on four stages over the three-day event. Here is a selection from the press [...]
The annual Asheville-Buncombe Memorial Day ceremony held May 30 on Roger McGuire Green in Pack Square Park was a chance for residents and visitors to reflect upon and remember service men and women who had given their lives in the name of protecting the nation. This year, the event also marked a special milestone, as [...]
This weekend, a group of local music lovers will shut themselves in an Asheville hotel suite and spend three days listening to some 600 musical submissions for the 2011 Bele Chere Festival. The ritual takes place every year at the end of February and results in the entertainment lineup for the festival, held this year [...]
On Saturday, September 11, members of the Asheville Fire Department and their families gathered at the Grove Park Inn to participate in a ceremony commemorating firefighters who served and died in the 2001 attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City. The ceremony was presided over by Asheville Fire Chief Scott Burnette, who [...]
Since pedestrians are still walking around the festival area after Bele Chere closes, officers from the Asheville Police Department stand guard at the festival barricades, keeping the streets closed to traffic. By about 6:30, when pedestrian traffic has thinned enough, festival officials put out a call to APD officers and festival staff that vendor vehicles [...]
How do you pack up a three-day festival in about six hours? After some 30 years of wrapping the Bele Chere festival, City of Asheville and festival staff have the system down to a sort of frenzied science. Multiple city departments, festival vendors and private companies all interact to make Bele Chere disappear overnight. With [...]
Within the boundaries of Bele Chere, there are approximately 210 trash barrels and 120 recycling bins. Still, without regular rounds by the City of Asheville’s sanitation crews, those containers would be piled beyond capacity. Crew leader Booby Austin says teams of two crew members hit each container every 45 minutes on Friday, the slowest day of [...]
Harry McDaniels is walking in front of the Asheville Art Museum carrying a stack of Bele Chere schedules to deliver to one of the festival’s information booths. It’s details like that, large and small, that Bele Chere Area Managers have to keep on their radars for three days to make sure the festival’s moving parts [...]