(bright upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

It's that time of year, it's time for the award-winning Black Swamp Arts Festival, held September 10th, 11th and 12th in historic downtown Bowling Green.

It's the largest free festival in Ohio, first held back in 1993.

We'll be talking with some of the volunteers who help run this, and our first guest is Tim Concannon.

He is the performing arts chair and Tim, obviously one of the key elements of the arts festival is the performing arts, the music.

So talk a little about your role as the chair of performing arts and what you've been doing in your spare time while you've been working on this particular part of the arts festival.

- Yes.

Well, thanks for having me, Steve, and thanks for having the whole festival to talk about what we're doing in a couple of weeks here in Bowling Green, it's really exciting.

As you mentioned, I'm the co-chair of the performing arts and I'm here on behalf of my friend and colleague, who's also a co-chair, Cole Christianson.

We are essentially charged with booking the bands that play at the festival.

We have three stages, we've got a community stage, we've got a family stage and we have the main stage.

And in all respects, we've got a really good collection of national acts, regional acts and local acts to bring some awesome entertainment to the festival.

- Yeah.

Now, you talk about the fact you've got these three stages and of course, what's the protocol, what's your criteria for finding the performers for each of these particular stages?

What is that process like to make sure you get the right people and get them here for the festival?

- Well, first and foremost, Cole and I are always trying to put together what we think will be a great show.

So for all those stages, we try to put up a lineup together that has a good, just a good amount of variety, but one that feels right and one that's very entertaining and kind of showcases the various talents of different kinds of musicians across different genres.

So we just, we listen to a lot of people, people give us feedback.

Sometimes we get, we find bands, a friend of the festival will come up and say, "Hey, you should check this band out."

A lot of times we spend a lot of time just passing around articles and videos that we see on YouTube.

We just, we follow a lot of music.

We actually have a very, since we've been around so long, you mentioned the festival has been around for over 20 years, we've got a great lineup of agents and booking companies that we work with to suggest artists to us.

And then just all year round, I stay involved with the local music scene, make sure I know who the good, the performers locally who wanna take part in the festival are, and we just have a good mix of artists that's pretty good.

- And in terms of, obviously there are events on all three days, what time does the performance start?

And I know probably different for each of the stages, but is there a, there's a schedule obviously, and we can talk about some of the specifics because you've got quite - [Tim] Yeah.

- an array of people on the main stage, but what's the typical start time and closing time for each of the stages?

- Well, Fridays is gonna be the main stage.

So there's only one stage on Friday night - [Steve] Oh, okay.

- and we kick things off at 5:00 PM with Charles Wesley Godwin.

He's a excellent singer out of West Virginia.

Sings, you can hear the, I think his father was a coal miner so he's just got a beautiful voice.

And it's a country sound, I think people are really gonna enjoy it.

And then after Charles, we've got Elan Juul who people have likened to Ghillean Welsh or Lucinda Williams, just a wonderful performer.

She's actually been at the festival in past years.

You mentioned where we get some of artists.

Sometimes we'd like to invite favorites back to the festival so people can enjoy artists they've seen in the past.

She's wonderful.

We have a new band that's not been here before, Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band.

They're very high energy band.

They come out of the blues tradition and then, and they're touring with a ZZ Top presently and then headlining at 10 o'clock on Friday is Ward Davis, who we had signed last year, but the festival didn't happen last year, but he was gracious enough to come back and join us.

He's a fantastic songwriter out of Arkansas.

He, and you know, is in Nashville now, but he has a wonderful band.

He's written songs for Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard.

And he's gonna be pretty special.

He just won, his album was one of the core albums of the year for Saving Country Music website.

So he's very good.

- Wow.

And as usual, and of course, if you look back at years past, there have been a lot of name artists, people that would recognize the name and the performer without even thinking about it.

And yet at the same time, you've got these people who have been here before, also up and coming people, people that are just starting their careers, but always good performances.

One question would be, obviously these folks don't come here and play for free.

So talk a little about how the funding works for this, 'cause obviously you're paying them to be here.

- Yes.

We have a really handsome budget that we work with and we're very fortunate and respect.

We make a lot of money through volunteer donations.

We also raise money through beer sales.

So definitely come down and enjoy the beer we have.

And then over time, we've just been really good stewards of the finances of the festival.

And we've been smart about allocating resources and getting partnerships across the community and things.

So we have a good handle on the budget, but we do pay the artists well and we have a lot of goodwill too.

So maybe we don't pay top dollar, but we pay on time - [Steve] Yeah.

- and we're consistent and the artists like to come back.

So... - Yeah.

And that's an important thing because if the artists have a good experience with this event, you're more likely to be able to get them to come back in future years because they know it's a first-class run operation.

So that's a good thing.

- [Tim] Yeah.

- Can you talk a little bit about the family stage so people know what to expect there?

- Yeah.

We call it the family stage.

It was started a little bit more, I think we called it the family stage, it was maybe more of a kid focused, but it's over near the family area near Howard's.

It just happens to be a smaller stage, but we do have some, not necessarily, I wouldn't say family oriented acts, nothing terrible about them or anything.

They're not going, it's not like they're gonna be doing pyrotechnics or anything, but they're really good songwriters, singer songwriters.

We've got a jazz ensemble out there and various acts like that.

So... - Yeah.

Yeah.

And when you look at this in terms of coordinating all of this, how do you decide who ends up on what stage and at what time to perform, how's that?

There's, obviously you have a committee and assist like that, but how do you guys determine who should be the final act of each night or whatever?

- Well, it's a mix of things and some of it is negotiating with the booking agent and things like that.

Some it's just the name of the band.

For instance, on Saturday night we have Cedric Burnside who's, his family tradition has, his grandfather, Earl Burnside was a famous blues musician and fantastic artist.

Cedric's just got a big sound, it makes sense to have him headline that night, big energy.

Also the common heart from Pittsburgh area is a large band, maybe seven or eight members.

They've got a really wonderful soul sound, horns, horn section, backup singers.

So they're gonna be a big, higher energy band.

Arlow McKinley also is earlier in the bill on Saturday, he's got a sound similar to Ward Davis in the respect that it's kind of a honky-tonk old country sound.

He's out of Cincinnati.

So we just, we try to, you know, make sure that the headliners are bands that are really national touring acts that are fitting of that place.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah.

- But then down the bill is also very, very good artists.

And maybe they're not ready for headlining material yet, but they're pretty darn good themselves.

So... - Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's like, it's like a kinda like a hierarchy, and over time, some of these folks who are at the beginning of each night may turn out to eventually be headlining sometime in the future.

- That's the plan.

Yeah, we pride ourselves on finding some really good up and coming acts.

We try to find bands that are just at the cusp of getting maybe some fame and recognition in terms of Grammys or just a bigger touring, you know, setups or anything like that.

So that we're really just trying to find upcoming bands, help them get to where they're going.

And that works for us too, because they tend to be a little more affordable, but just as entertaining.

So... - Great.

And of course you can find the full schedule for all of the stages with times and dates and everything, by going to the blackswampfest.org website.

So all that information is available easy for people to find if they're looking for a particular act to watch or follow.

So... - Yes, that's correct.

I wanna show this poster, it's really cool that Amy Karlovic had made, a local artist.

Jamie Sands will be on later to show you the actual festival poster.

But this is a really neat music lineup poster that she put together that we're really proud of.

- Yeah they're very... Yeah, incredibly attractive posters.

You're right.

I mean really grab your attention.

And then there's something on the flip side of the large posters which I think is always kind of a neat thing too.

- [Tim] Yes.

- But Tim Concannon, a performing arts co-chair, Black Swamp Festival, thanks for taking the time to talk with us and good wishes for the event and hope, you know, weather's good and everything, everything turns out great for you.

- We're excited.

Thank you very much for having us.

- Thank you.

Thank you for staying with us here on "The Journal."

We're talking with the folks from the Black Swamp Art Festival, which takes place September 10th, 11th, and 12th in Bowling Green.

And our guests in this segment are Jamie Sands, the chair of the entire festival, and also Carmen Cano, the marketing co-chair.

Jamie, talk about your role, obviously you're in charge of the overall events, all of these different segments.

We talked with Tim Concannon earlier about the performing arts, but talk about your role as chair and what that really means.

- Oh.

Thank you.

So as chair, I try to really support all of the great efforts that all of our various committees are putting forth to create the Black Swamp Arts Festival.

There's a million little details and a thousand things to do, and everyone is doing great work.

We are all volunteer run, and the festival is a wonderful thing and our whole community loves it.

- Now, how do you get to become the chair?

- How did I get to become the chair?

- [Steve] Did you, you volunteered, right?

Is that what... - Privilege, yes.

A series of volunteering and being in the wrong place at the right time.

(Steve laughs) - Okay.

Yeah.

Now, when you talk about the number of volunteers, and I know we were talking a little bit before the program, it takes quite a few people behind the scenes and of course, during the event to make this happen.

So about how many volunteers do you have for the festival for that three-day event?

- We have about a thousand volunteers.

And not everyone is there at the same time, because we all want to enjoy the festival and then help out for a little bit of it.

But it takes a lot of people.

It's a whole community.

The festival is free and there are so many aspects to the festival.

It's rather large, and there are lots of things to do for all different ages.

So it takes a lot of people to put it on.

- Yeah.

And you're in the process right now where, when this will, will actually broadcast will be basically about a week or so away from that roughly a week away.

People can still volunteer, correct?

- People can always volunteer.

- [Steve] Okay.

- You can absolutely volunteer for this year's festival, which is September 10th, 11th, and 12th.

And then our planning committee is working year round to make the festival.

So there's always a way to get involved and we encourage everyone to do so.

- Now, when you talk about the volunteers, what sort of things would they be assigned to do?

What are some of the roles that they play?

- Yeah.

Volunteers help with every aspect of the festival, whether it's youth arts, or helping take tickets, we have artists hospitality and a lot of volunteers that sit at the artist booths or bring them food.

We have a really robust community of artists and volunteers that help make everything happen.

- Now, last year of course there wasn't the festival because of the pandemic.

Has that made your job more difficult this year because you didn't have last year to sort of just have in the, kind of in the line, in the pipeline, or has that made it more difficult this year to get everything done or not?

- Absolutely.

Very astute question.

I think it's made all of our jobs more difficult as far as the planning committee goes.

We have been simultaneously planning three different versions of the festival and trying to be ready to pivot at any moment, anticipating different scenarios and just doing what's, what's best for the festival and public health and safety and bringing us all together.

- Now, right now what, as we sit here today, what is the protocol right now in terms of when people come to the festival, masks, no masks, what is the standard at this point in time?

- So we are an all open festival.

There is no ticketing and you can enter from any entrance point.

We are so excited for the festival and bringing everyone together.

And we of course want to do what's best for public health and safety.

And in our scenario planning we think, well, what's the worst case scenario if we do this?

What's the worst case scenario if we do that?

So we just wanna do, we wanna bring everyone together, have a wonderful time.

And we're encouraging mask wearing as, you know, so we're following the guidance from Wood County health commissioner and the CDC to encourage mask wearing.

It's not policed, but it is encouraged and everyone can make their own decisions they're in.

- And about how many people do you expect for the festival at a typical year?

- Over the three days, we have about 45,000 people.

- Ah, Wow.

So it's, yeah, it's a big gathering.

So yeah, that's one of the frameworks, as we talked about in the intro of the program that it's, it's an award-winning festival, it's all volunteer run, and is just, yeah, a significant part of what happens as we open up September, the fall basically, kind of officially starts the fall and in Bowling Green.

Carmen, you're the marketing co-chair.

So talk a little about getting the word out, the things you do and what that means as far as marketing is concerned.

- Yes.

So we do a lot of the stereotypical stuff.

So we do a lot of ads, newspaper.

Digital is becoming more prominent.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- A lot of social media stuff, so everything.

All of our various committees, so performing arts, visual arts, we have chairs for our very popular youth arts as well.

Everything they give to me, I make sure we kind of talk about somewhere on social media.

We have kinds of different photographers that we try to work with and schedule, our different media outlets which I'm sure you're very familiar with.

(laughs) Yeah.

We work with a lot, make sure they all know what's going on.

It's just the marketing committee is very much a team aspect.

So we're kind of, I want to say the glue that makes sure we all kind of, well, that wasn't...(laughs) - [Steve] Yeah.

- Yeah.

We're kind of the glue that holds the festival together in a way to make sure we're kind of... - Able to keep, - Yeah.

- Able to promote everything equally.

Well, because the main thing I guess, would be to make sure people understand the scope of it because it covers so many areas.

There are so many things going on that from a marketing point, yeah, it has to be a little tricky to make sure, Hey, did we give enough attention to this?

Are we making sure people know enough about that?

It's a, yeah, it's a pretty complex situation when you get right down to it.

- Exactly.

It's all about being organized and making sure you are as in the know as you can be with all of the different aspects of the festival.

So you wanna make sure that you're getting all the information right, but also making sure that the people who need to know what you're doing.

So if I put out an ad for performing arts, I wanna make sure that everything is correct and that they know that this ad is coming out.

- Well, and then of course the other thing that happens here too, and we all know this, that as you move through the start of planning, and of course, planning is probably already underway for the 2022 one, things change on a, sometimes a daily or an hourly basis.

So as you go to market, well maybe today, oh, this group maybe isn't gonna be able to come after all, or we're gonna have to change the time on this or move something here and there.

So it isn't like you do, once you set the ad in place you're done with it completely, it always is evolving.

- Well, yeah.

Yeah.

It's definitely, this year specifically has kept me on my toes more than I think previous years.

But it's kind of the true test of marketing is how flexible are you, how flexible is the event itself, which is really nice that we are able to do all of this and that everyone is so flexible and everything.

Even though we'd like to say, we're still in the planning process.

We, like you said, we have been thinking about 2022.

- Right.

Right.

And right up until the actual, right until it actually starts to happen, things can change.

- [Cano] Exactly.

- When we come back and we've got both of you here, let's kind of go through some of the other aspects because obviously we need to talk about parking and food and all of the other aspects that we haven't touched on yet, so that people really do get a great idea of everything that goes on at the Black Swamp Arts Festival.

Back in just a moment, here on "The Journal."

Thanks for staying with us on "The Journal."

We're talking about the Black Swamp Arts Festival, 2021 edition, September 10th, 11th and 12th, downtown Bowling Green.

And our guests this segment are Jamie Sands, the chair of the festival, and also Carmen Cano, the marketing co-chair.

Jamie, one of the things that people may not know, one of the things that comes out of the art festival, are there are scholarships awarded.

So talk a little about how that takes place and what those scholarships are all about.

- Absolutely.

I'm really passionate about the support for the arts that the Black Swamp Art Festival is able to create.

Yes, we have a wonderful festival that is a great celebration of the arts, but we also provide art scholarships, funding to artists in our juried show.

And then funding to high school art and music programs via "Beats on the Street," unaccompanied vocal ensemble competition and chalk walk which is a chalk mural competition.

So there's a lot of support and in the arts and what we're doing, yes, it's wonderful, but it's creating these ripples of expanding our opportunities.

- Now you mentioned chalk walk, could you maybe explain a little bit about that so people know, because that's a high school competition, correct?

- It is.

And it's really fun to see the different high school groups from high schools all over that are interpreting the theme in different ways and they create these beautiful large murals.

And so that's really fun to see, and that is over by the Wood County Invitational Art Show because we do have two different art shows with original art.

And it's great to see.

There's so many different aspects of the festival, blackswampfest.org.

- Yeah, because people are very familiar, we've talked about the music and of course the juried art part of which people see because that's lining the main street and everything, but all of these other things that go on are also a big part of that.

So it's good to know.

When you look at the artists, and Carmen you can maybe weigh in on this, you know, it's a juried art festival, one of the higher end ones in the country.

Talk a little about the artists and the things that evolve around that because the artists have also had some good things to say about the Black Swamp Arts Festival too.

- Oh yeah.

They've had very good things to say.

And it shows actually recently we won the, we were a part of the 200 best art shows as voted by artists for the Sunshine Artists Magazine, it's kind of a mouthful.

But we were voted 61st and it is, every year the artists get a chance to vote for us.

So that kind of shows how much the artists really appreciate it.

We get all kinds of positive feedback at the end of the festival.

And it just shows too, 'cause we have a lot of artists that want to return.

So all of our, or I want to say most of our winners from 2019 are actually back for 2021.

You'll see a lot of those guys, a lot of our ceramicists are returning.

We have various forms of sculpture, fiber and leather, painting, photography, all kinds of different artists.

But we also make sure we get new artists in there too.

A bunch of different crafts, no two artists are the same is what the visual arts committee always likes to do and make sure that we have at the festival.

And the same goes for the Wood County Art Show too.

No two artists are the same, and that kind of shows the diversity in our visual artists and what all they can do.

- Well, and it's interesting because you mentioned some of the different mediums that people work in and, you know, 'cause we think of arts like, okay, it's gonna be painting, it's gonna be sculpture, it's gonna be ceramics, but there are all those other things that you mentioned, whether it's working in leather or working all these other different materials that, yeah, give this show this really diverse flavor and things like, oh, I never would have thought of doing that with that.

And so it does inspire people to look at art in an entirely different way as part of the festival.

- Yeah.

One of the fun things we like to do too, we like to kind of inspire that at a young age and then also kind of carry that throughout in our "Youth Art" section.

We have a bunch of different make and takes that people can go up and do even if you're not a kid, I always like to go and do things that the youth are (indistinct), they're really fun.

- [Steve] Adults can be kids too, you know, that's okay.

- Yeah.

- That's all right, yeah.

- And then we have a section called "Artists at Work" that kind of show how various artists put into practice.

So I know Fire Nation Glass is gonna be there this year.

We have woodturners that are also gonna be here to kind of show people how you can take something that could be a hobby, even if you want to just keep it a hobby, continue to build on that.

So that's always something really unique that we like to showcase at the festival.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And I guess that's one of the things, it obviously, all the other parts aside, and as Jamie mentioned, a lot of educational pieces come out of this as well.

I mean, you learn simply by going there and seeing all these different versions of art, and different ways to do things and yeah, the idea that, yeah, you can go there and watch somebody who really is skilled at this show you how they go about it.

And then you say, oh, maybe I can do a little bit of that too.

So it's a, yeah, it's really a great learning experience for everyone as well.

Logistically, obviously you're gonna bring in 45,000 people over the weekend or those three days as Jamie mentioned.

How do we park all those people and how do we get people conveniently to the venues?

How, what's the plan for that?

- So that is a really good question.

We actually get that quite a lot through social media.

So we do have, the city does provide parking downtown, but that normally comes on a first come first serve basis.

So we've actually, the last few years have had a shuttle service.

- [Steve] Oh.

- You can find the information on that on blackswampfest.org.

We work through Childers Shuttle.

So there are three different points for that.

But this year especially, it's a really neat the chamber of commerce in the convention and visitors bureau, So Visit BG, Ohio has actually partnered with the hotels and they're providing shuttle services as well at each of the hotels.

So you can, for our guests that are coming from out of town, you get the convenience of getting a shuttle stop right as you walk out of your hotel door.

- Ah, yeah.

Which again, for guests and I'm sure for artists as well, that's another reason to come back next year, the convenience, the ease of getting from wherever you happen to be staying to the different venues.

We've got just a couple of minutes.

Is there anything that we haven't touched on that people should really know about this?

And I know we, I had a real quick question though, in terms of the chalk walk, how do you recruit schools to do that?

Is there a mechanism for that, Jamie?

How does that come about so that schools can participate in the chalk walk part of this?

- Yes.

So we contact different schools and ask them if they would like to be involved, and being that there is funding that we provide for them, it's an added incentive.

And so it's great to be a part of, and we also have additional funding.

I would be remiss to not mention from the Ohio Arts Council, toledo.com, Arts Midwest, Rotary Club of Bowling Green, Kiwanis club of bowling green, a lot of wonderful supporters of the arts and a lot of community members that all pitch in to create the most diverse and wonderful weekend of the year.

- Okay, great.

And of course all of this information is available online, social media, Facebook, all of those locations.

So if people do have questions or just want to find out more information, very easy to get that.

So Jamie Sands, chair of the Black Swamp Arts Festival, 2021, and Carmen Cano, marketing co-chair, appreciate you being on in this segment and wish you well with the event.

And I'm sure it's gonna come off and be as successful as it always has been.

Appreciate you being here today.

Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

Hope to see you there.

- Yep, absolutely.

Absolutely.

You can check us out at wbgu.org, and of course you can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM on WBGU-PBS on "The Journal."

We will see you again next time.

(bright upbeat music)