Raleigh Wide Open

[Gard]

Shimmer wall is great! Finally something people can potentially remember Raleigh by...

[Jones_]

The rain definitely dampened things. The Annuals had a nice crowd by Raleigh Times but whatever cover band was in front of the convention center had like 20 people. The center is nice, if not typical on the inside. The outside soars and with its glass and various non-90 degree elements is fairly engaging. Its a convention district and holds it own as such even if the Marriott has no Salisbury access and certain facades are blank. Its a big step up from our old CC.

[miamiblue]

I had a great time on Fri and Sat. We did some First Friday gallery stuff before heading out to RWO on Friday evening. I ended up walking home in the pouring rain by the end of the night - thank goodness I had bought a rain jacket on the way home from work. The rain definitely didn't deter the group I went with. We enjoyed some delicious food at the International Festival. We had a great time at the beer garden and the wine tasting tent and roaming around the festivities on Saturday. The turnout was better than I expected Friday night despite the weather, and really good on Saturday.

I would love to see events like this more often.

[Jones_]

The Cherry Bounce stage was an important and packed piece for people who wanted newer original bands. With Transformers playing and the CC/International Festival also as a separate destination, it really was an event with wide scope physically and in taste. I assume this will be an annual event now and not just a celebration of facilities opening?

[Captain Awesome]

The Cherry Bounce stage was an important and packed piece for people who wanted newer original bands. With Transformers playing and the CC/International Festival also as a separate destination, it really was an event with wide scope physically and in taste. I assume this will be an annual event now and not just a celebration of facilities opening?

After the success of RWO 1, I think the city decided to keep it going year after year. Although, with all of the new things happening downtown, it will likely be a couple of more years before RWO doesn't showcase something new. I believe next year will be City Plaza's opening, and the following year will be the opening of FSt to Lichtin Plaza.

[ncwebguy]

We went for the parade, which was kind of short and weirdly anti-climatic.

The "demo expo" was kinda corny, but was a good way to get city and county agencies in front of the public. The international festival was fun, and area around the performance stage was crazy crowded. The Convention Center/Salisbury Street stage had a cover band and wasn't drawing quite as many people as the main stage on F Street. The Marriott closed off their circle and even kept pedestrians from walking on the "sidewalk" to let cars in and out. The Salisbury connector was cut off by artistic bollards with metal "oak leaves" on top.

The fireworks were *not* visible from the top of the Edison deck, but the display was quite amazing from Wilmington street.

[DanRNC]

The parades are getting a bit old-its kind of the "Aw shucks, we are in Mayberry" mentality complete with the 50's era cars they seem to de-mothball for every parade in Raleigh.

[RaleighRob]

Yeah, perhaps by RWO4 they should just skip the parade and do a basic street fair, festival, music stages, vendors, beer garden, etc with fireworks at end. I think those together would be enough.

(Besides, Raleigh's best parade IMHO is St. Patrick's Day one which is way better.)

[DanRNC]

One of the goals should be to identify legitimate demographics that are REALLY going to invest/use downtown and get those people down there. Right now it seems like this event is State Fair Lite.

[askmisterbrown]

The best part of the celebration, in the opinions of me and my family & friends, was the International Festival. This event has been produced for at least 22 years, and is always wonderful. It was slightly compacted this year to fit in with all the other exhibits, but was still great, and attracted big crowds. To me, this Festival showcases one of the best things about the Triangle, i.e. our large population of people from all over the world. It was especially delightful to see all the young people from India, Lebanon, Iran, etc. proudly presenting their modern national music and dance. The Indian dance and music has become a big thing in Britain, including among the Brits themselves. With the gradual decline of rock & roll, perhaps Asian music and dance will become popular in the US as well; the Triangle could become a gateway, considering our large South Asian population.

The food from all over the world was wonderful and cheap. The Nepalese dumplings were the biggest hit. The facades of the food booths themselves, representing the architecture of each country, are masterpieces of scenic design, and have survived at least 22 years, thanks to careful maintenance by Festival staff.

The arts and crafts were lovely, as were the special performances by the African Children's Choir and other groups. The people-watching was great, too -- people walking around in native costumes from all over.

After we walked back outside and strolled up Fayetteville St., we realized that the crowd out there was almost as international and multi-cultural as inside the Festival! We in the Triangle are truly the face of the future!

[Jones_]

With the gradual decline of rock & roll

Oh misterbrown, there is no decline in rock n'roll. The Cherry Bounce stage showed off a good collection from the Indie scene....just because big labels won't sign these bands (or the bands refuse to sign with big labels) and commercial radio therefore can't play them, does not mean they don't exist or are not very very popular. The Cherry Bounce location in front of Raleigh Times brought out more local downtown residents than any other portion of RWO.

[askmisterbrown]

Oh misterbrown, there is no decline in rock n'roll. The Cherry Bounce stage showed off a good collection from the Indie scene....just because big labels won't sign these bands (or the bands refuse to sign with big labels) and commercial radio therefore can't play them, does not mean they don't exist or are not very very popular. The Cherry Bounce location in front of Raleigh Times brought out more local downtown residents than any other portion of RWO.

Ha ha! Actually, I did enjoy a couple bands at the Cherry Bounce stage. It wasn't exactly the Monterey Pop Festival, but it was pretty good.

[ncwebguy]

I was hoping the old Exploris would work more closely with the well-established International Festival, but that never happened... But with the new facility, I want to see what they could do with the whole exhibition floor next year!

Ditto the Cherry Bounce stage/area on Hargett. Maybe play off that and have a row of local arts and craft vendors, (no food or drink other than Raleigh Times/Times Bar) on Hargett west of Fayetville, with the performance space and downtown-based restaurants serving east of F Street. It would be nice to see the local music scene get to toot its own horn more often.

[ncwebguy]

Raleigh Wide Open 5 is next weekend:

http://www.raleighconvention.com/rwo5/index.html

The parade is back, but the International Festival is not involved.

It seems like there is a lot of sports-action kind of events (BMX, skateboarding, motorcycles, wrestling, etc.) to go along with the music and arts.

And a Kripsy-Kreme eating contest. Probably not involving the Cheerwine doughnuts, but it will be interesting to see how much the "winner" (are there any winners in an eating contest?) consumes.

[ctl]

Appears that the 2010 International Festival (25th anniversary!) will be a standalone event, Oct 1-3 at the Convention Center. My impression is that this event has regained the footing that it had in the 1990s as a standalone event. If I recall correctly, the event became fractured after 9-11-2001 and attendance declined while it was at the NC Fairgrounds.