Get nekkid, paint your body and grab your bike! This Saturday, the Fremont Arts Council is hosting its 24th annual Solstice Parade and Festival, beginning at noon in downtown Fremont. The parade route leads to the We the People Power Festival at Gas Works Park beginning at 1:00PM. Here’s the scoop from The Fremont Arts Council:
The We the People Power Festival is designed to inspire. It will be a celebration of sustainable living, people-powered action and grassroots democracy, with hands-on fun for the whole community! Building on the excitement of the 24th Annual Solstice Parade, this event at Gas Works Park will connect artists, organizations, and citizens in a playful atmosphere – drawing new faces into the green-living effort, inspiring changes, big and small; and leading participants toward living more lightly and joyfully on the planet. The festival will include colorful, interactive games (with fun prizes!), hands-on workshops, sustainable practices demonstrations, art creation and displays. This Fremont Solstice Celebration will host a beer garden, lively music and tasty food.
In the colorful and can-do spirit of the Fremont Solstice Parade, the goal of the We the People Power Festival is to inspire attendees to identify a personal passion, connect with others who share that passion, and get involved in making a positive difference in our community. We do this by co-creating an environment where people have an abundance of ways to learn and have fun with their friends, their families. Participants will meet new people and discover the joy and purposefulness of being part of a community that celebrates and serves the greater good.
It is deplorable that you introduce a wonderful, people friendly, artistic, creative, inspired, community-buillding venture with you rlow mental view,”get nekkid”.
If memory serves, the first Seattle Solstice Parade was in June, 1989, making this year’s the 23rd annual . . . time can expand in press releases. The original flavor Summer Solstice Parade was created by artist and mime troupe founder Michael Gonzales in 1974 in Santa Barbara, California, now celebrating its 38th year.
Let the sun shine!
get nekkid with your family and friends and after the parade stroll up to the greenway celebration and grace them with your presence
@1
de·plor·a·ble
Adjective:
Deserving strong condemnation.
Shockingly bad in quality.
pfffft. sure, maybe it wasn’t the best opening, but this is the neighborhood blog. it’s a casual place. let’s all just go down there, have a good time in our different ways, and let the fun vibes flow. ^_^
First in 1989 seems late to me, honestly thought I’d been in one earlier than that, but in any case the formula for the ordinal number of the upcoming parade is is B – A + 1. 2012 – 1989 + 1 = 24. Because we count both this year and the first year … so to take for example a hypothetical annual event that first occurred in 2011, this year would mark the 2nd occurrence, not the 1st.
Forgot about counting the first one! Thanks. I was there, we had summer that year.
shockingly bad in quality
poor choice to describe a family community event
Sounds like this might be your first Fremont Solstice Parade. Not that it isn’t a family community event, but it isn’t for every family.
100 people ride their bikes with no or almost no clothes
2,000 people play music, dance, sing march in the parade
25,000 come to the festival all clothes
400 merchants welcoem the crowds prpared with sales, food, drinks
Gasworks is opened with event games, tents, entertainment for 3000
100 nekkid people is one way to herald this event which people spend time preparing for and it touches many. Some local schools have floats in it. But it must be welcomed wiht a nekkid reference.
Ive performed in it 6 times and 3 times at a giant performance afterwards- not nekkid, supporting and participating in a creative community venture.
While some are stuck in oggling a few who use the parade for their nekkid thrill most are there for other purposes.
@No Kidding. Give me a break. Even Frommer’s lists this as a “a celebration of the summer solstice with a wacky parade, naked bicyclists, food, arts & crafts and entertainment.” Not seeing the emphasis on the family in that description. In fact all I would add to that is “…and spleef.” Because that’s what Wallingford Ave and Stone Way smell like all the way down to the Festival.
Trying to recast the Solstice Parade as a family-centric event is like trying to have the Texas School Book Depository recognized first and foremost for the many students it served over the years.
Anyway, perhaps you should grace Frommer’s website with your presence too. You might have better luck convincing people who don’t live here.
Actually the nekkid thrills are even fewer than you represent. I’ll go along with you on one point, the naked bicyclists et al. are a poor trade for the remarkable energy and creativity I remember from the parades in the ’90s. That’s probably not how it really works – there are probably several factors behind the parade’s decline and the bicyclists play a small role if any – but I believe the parade organizers have historically been among those that wish they would go somewhere else.
@”No Kidding”….would you be any relation to our favorite poster “Coolio”? I find similarity in your remarks and lack of editing. 🙂 Thought you had retired.
he is my evil twin
Coolio/No Kidding/taca/cata/whatever changes her name every once in a while for some reason. She was Coolio for longer than usual. It’s hard to see the point because it is so easy to recognize the comments.