Highlands organizers chasing teens

BY BRENT CARNEY
Media General News Service
ABINGDON – Virginia Highlands Festival organizers hope several new events added to this year’s schedule will make the annual festival more appealing to teenagers.
The festival’s headliner, however, is sure to appeal more to their parents.
Festival organizers announced Wednesday that Chubby Checker will highlight the entertainment for the Highlands Festival.
The ’60s rock’n-’roller will perform at a free concert during the festival’s July 26 Street Party.
“Having someone of Chubby Checker’s level is going to just be wonderful for us,” Highland Festival President Susan Patrick said, “A lot of folks are coming into town specifically to see Chubby Checker.”
It is the 60th year for the annual celebration in Abingdon. The town’s visitor’s bureau estimated that 150,000 people visited the festival during its three-week run last summer.
Along with the usual blend of antiques, crafts, food, and live entertainment, festival organizers announced Wednesday that the 2008 celebration will feature several new additions.
n A colonial marketplace and living-history portrayals at the Craig’s Meadow home.
n Cooking classes at Glenrochie Country Club.
n A Civil War garden tour at the Field-Penn 1860 House Museum.
The schedule also includes several events that organizers hope will attract younger festival-goers.
Teenagers are a group that Bill Eberhardt, the festival’s youth and teen events chairman, said can often be caught feeling out of place with so many of the festival’s activities catered specifically for adults or young children.
Eberhardt is aware that appealing to teens is important if the festival is to thrive for 60 more years.
“If we don’t start having something aimed at this age group, when they leave to go college, if they’re thinking about, ‘do I want to go back to that community’ and nobody cared anything about them for eight or nine years in our activity, then why would they want to come back to this community?”
Eberhardt believes this year’s festival has several events and entertainers that will appeal to teens.
The activities will include a car show, featuring awards for the cleanest engine, loudest sound system and the car that rides lowest to the ground.
Buzz Sutherland, a comedian who primarily performs at college campuses, is in the lineup.
A battle of the bands competition and “Abingdon Idol,” a talent contest designed to resemble the popular Fox television show, will also carry youth appeal.
This year’s festival is scheduled for July 26 through Aug. 10. For information, visit http://www.VaHighlandsFestival.org. (276) 645-2568