Great River Days 2011 is ON!

New event plans will be an improvement to the festival

 The 53rd annual Great River Days event, to be held on July 27-30, 2011 in Muscatine, will return to its traditional location at Riverfront Park and the downtown area.

 This year, festival-goers will see some sentimental comparisons to prior events of the 1980’s and early 90’s, when GRD was large enough to occupy the entire length of the downtown riverfront. Event organizers are pleased with the attendance growth of the festival over the past few years, and the event site plan expansion on the Riverfront was a necessary element for that growth to continue.

Last Friday, GRD organizers met with the Mayor and City Leaders to work out the details of hosting the 2011 event at Riverfront Park. As a result of that discussion and support from City Staff, GRD 2011 will have expanded use of the Park for this years’ event. Specifically, the layout will shift from the Millennium Plaza greenspace and relocate the concert area east of Cedar Street and the Pearl City Station. The benefits of the new site plan offered by the City are numerous.

“The Millennium Plaza Greenspace was a great place to have a concert.” commented Kerry Keller, event co-chairman. “But the east side of Cedar Street offers shade trees, closer walking distance from the entrance gate, and paved areas to park the support equipment that is required for a large concert production. While the event layout will be bigger, event attractions will be in closer proximity to each other along the riverfront.”

In 2010, the event was relocated at the last minute due to river flooding, and held at the MCC Campus. While MCC remains as a flood contingency plan for 2011, organizers are focusing attention on Riverfront Park and the continued expansion of the festival at that location. Event co-chairman JJ Koehler commented, “The carnival will have plenty of room, and the concert area will be second-to-none. By moving some activities east of Cedar Street, the layout makes much more sense. Walking in from Cedar, you are right in the middle of the action.”

Again this year, general riverfront admission to the event will be free to the public. The GRD three-day concert series will run Thursday through Saturday, with the addition of fireworks on Saturday evening. Other festival attractions from Wednesday through Saturday will return, including the annual Parade and family fun-day on Saturday afternoon. A tentative schedule of events will be released next month on the GreatRiverDays.com website.

After the flooding and relocation of the event last year, GRD organizers are pleased to be back on the Riverfront for 2011. “We cannot stress enough, that the support of the City, our event sponsors, and the public made this plan a reality,” Koehler concluded.