This year’s Arts, Beats, & Eats festival will return to downtown Royal Oak Labor Day weekend and feature an art contest, social scavenger hunt, a 5K and 10K race, and more.
“Ford Arts, Beats, & Eats is an outstanding cultural experience sustained through meaningful business, community, and civic partnerships,” said L. Brooks Patterson, Oakland County Executive at a news conference this afternoon. “In addition to attracting more than 350,000 people annually, this quality of life celebration provides a significant economic boost to the region. And it’s just plain fun.”
This year’s festival will include a new beautification contest, Meters Made Beautiful, which will allow amateur and professional artists to submit an application with a proposed custom parking meter design for the city. Up to 150 winners will be selected to construct their proposed design on a parking meter inside the festival grounds.
A social scavenger hunt and giveaway, #ABEHunt16, at Arts, Beats, & Eats will allow participating attendees to win various prizes, including an overnight stay at Mount Pleasant-based Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort, which sponsors the festival.
To enter the giveaway, participants must take a photo of, with, or in the location of each item and place listed for the scavenger hunt, and then post the photo on the #ABEHunt16 app on the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort’s Facebook.
“People have always loved Ford Arts, Beats & Eats as a backdrop for selfies and Facebook photos, and now they are able to win prizes for doing just what they normally would do while at the festival,” says Raul Venegas, director of marketing and entertainment at Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort.
This year’s festival will collaborate with Autisim Alliance of Michigan for the fifth annual Family Days, which gives children on the autism spectrum and their family members a one-day access to the festival with free parking, admission, carnival rides, and lunch for the first 750 registrants.
The festival will also include a Priority Health Move to the Beats 5K and 10K, which will give participants the opportunity to run and walk to DJs and live bands throughout Royal Oak, and a Priority Health Zumbathon Celebration, which will transform the event’s Michigan Lottery Stage into a dance fitness class.
The Deaf Arts Festival, which features visual and performing arts by artists who are deaf and hard of hearing, will return to the event for its fifth year.
For more information, visit artsbeatsandeats.com.
