Sat 3/12
One big hug is what visitors can expect when attending Akron’s free Big Love Festival Sat 3/12 at the Summit Artspace building.
The third annual winter community festival features 12 hours of music from more than a dozen acts, and theatrical performances from more than 30 visual artists. In addition, there will be community-building workshops, family-friendly activities and interactive art installations. The latter includes an installation space representing the north, south, east and west sides of Akron, with each quadrant depicted through the interpretation of two artists from different ethnic backgrounds.
Also the Big Love Festival will host an interfaith wellness room, with interfaith activities for self-healing, reflection and mindfulness. Perhaps nothing more epitomizes the spirit of the festival than its zero-waste focus with all vendors using compostable or recyclable materials, craft vendors using upcycling techniques and food vendors offering locally grown, vegan food to minimize environmental impact.
CoolCleveland talked to Big Love Festival co-founder Zach Freidhof, who is also a member of local band The Bright Lights, about the bridge-building experience.
Considering the title of the affair is the Big Love Festival, it would seem symbolically speaking visitors should expect to experience one big hug.
That’s very much symbolically what’s happening. This is definitely about spreading our love and sharing our love with the community, for each other and how we can all kind of work together and work on creating the type of community that we all want to be a part of.
What’s the impetus of the event?
It started based on an idea I had. I’m also a musician and performer that has been playing around for the last 17 years or so. I noticed that in the wintertime, our community down here in Akron needed a reason to gather, and I felt like we had been on the verge of really being able to collaborate more. A lot of groups have been working towards that. I thought some sort of gathering event could really help to facilitate and spur that on. So I got the idea from friends of mine who also do wonderful things in the community. We put together a really incredible team of people and it’s just really taken off.
So in your words, what is the Big Love Festival?
The Big Love Festival is a community-building, community engagement festival in downtown Akron. It features all sorts of different art, music and food. It’s one of the largest zero-waste efforts in the county, and it’s pretty much about building community. “Building Bridges” is our theme. It’s gathering the community together.
Can you elaborate on this year’s theme of “Building Bridges?”
This festival is all about modeling the type of community we want to see and not just for one day, but building bridges between ethnicities and race. We have a lot of different collaborations for that. We’re working on building bridges between artistic mediums. We try to pair up some of the art with the music and encourage people to step out of their comfort zones with that. We also have a really large healing space that is programmed with yoga, meditation, reiki and massage. So we’re working with building bridges into ourselves, and between ourselves and the community.
As the event enters its third year, what’s new?
There’s a bunch of things. We have a handful of new bands playing this year. We have a lot more artists involved this year. We’re creating an installation by our main stage that is a tribute to the old historic black jazz district in Akron, as well as how we envision the inner-belt (Route 59) being torn out in the next few years. There’s a lot of engagement about what can happen to that space. We have a lot of new workshops this year that are going to be really wonderful.
Considering the Big Love Festival takes place in the winter, how many people normally come out?
We had about 2,000 people last year, and we’re looking to get more than that this year. Our attendance from the first year to the second year doubled. We outgrew our original space, which was the Musica complex. And last year with 2,000 people in there, it was as full as it could be so we moved to the Summit Artspace. We’re excited to have three full floors of everything we can do with full interactive art installations. We’ll be transforming and activating spaces in that building.
Apologies ahead of time but with an event named the “Big Love Festival,” any chance some visitors think they’re attending a tribute to the HBO television series about polygamy?
I didn’t know about it until after our first year when somebody told me about the show. So far we’ve not had anybody attend expecting that.
OK, just to confirm, Bill Paxton won’t be making an appearance at the festival?
[laughs] Not that I know of, no, but we do welcome everyone.