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Third Annual Beacon Hat Parade on May 19
Come one and all to the third annual Beacon Hat Parade Saturday, May 19th (Rain date: Sunday, May 20th with kick off at 1pm). It's a day-long festival of wildly personal wearable art, music and family fun! Artists and non-artists are encouraged to create and wear their hats in the parade and join in celebrating Beacon's history as the hat manufacturing capital of the Northeast.
A pancake breakfast will be served starting at 9:30am at Beacon's Tompkins Hose Fire House, located at the west end of Main Street at the corner of South Avenue and Main Street. Parade staging begins at 10:30am in the Tompkins Hose parking lot. The parade kicks off at 11:30am and travels east along Main Street to the intersection of Main and East Main Streets. Anyone wishing to march in the parade may participate providing they are wearing some type of hat.
Judging of the hats in the Hat Parade begins immediately after the parade in the parking lot of the Piggy Bank restaurant. Prizes will be given for the Most Fantastic, Most Fashionable, Most Freaky, Most Edible, the Largest and the Smallest. A prize for the Best Kid's Hat will also be given.
Music begins immediately after the hat contest and runs from 1-5pm. There will be two music stages: the main stage in the parking lot of the Piggy Bank restaurant and the second stage across the street on the lawn of the Howland Cultural Center. Featured performers include Gwen Laster, John Cubito & Heather Vacarr, Kazi Oliver, Bosco & the Storm, R.A.D., Sub-Missed, Buddha Heroes, and Space Geeks. The day's festivities will also include arts and crafts, and food and beverages from a variety of local restaurants. And don't forget to visit the galleries and shops along Main St., which offer fine art, unique objects of desire, and great antiques.
A Silent Auction of artistdecorated hat boxes will take place from May 5th through June 2nd. Boxes will be on display in the storefront windows in the Van Brunt Gallery located at 460 Main St. Artists who are interested in decorating hat boxes may contact Jacqueline Weissner at 845- 838-1737. Proceeds from the sale of hat boxes benefit future Hat Parades.
The Beacon Hat Parade events are sponsored by the Beacon Arts Community Association (BACA). Support for the Hat Parade music is made possible (in part) through a grant to the the Howland Arts Center from the Dutchess County Arts Council, administrator of public funds through NYSCA's Decentralization Program. Additional support for the Hat Parade festivities has been provided by the Howland Cultural Center, the Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union, the Piggy Bank and the Rutigliano Group.
For more information, visit
www.beaconarts.org
or 845-546-6222; questions about the Hat Parade, call Jacqueline Weissner at 845- 838-1737; questions about the music, call Robert Rutigliano, 845-838-0839.
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