Floyd Mayweather's 4th of July Festival

[plee30]

The report I got from my friend Jeff was nothing serious, I think the young men were trying to razz Jeff because his wife is African-American. It would be like a black man taking his white wife to the Ionia Free Fair. Most people would be tolerant of such, but there are bound to be some people out there that just cannot let people live thier lives. As far a a threat to his and her safety, I don't think either felt threatened, just a feeling of uneasiness (some pretty ignorant comments were made, no physical display, nothing to report to police).

[fotoman311]

Hey now, I've been to the Ionia Free Fair, and even some much smaller county fairs around the state with my wive and we've never had problems. Granted, I'm a bigger guy, but I think in general ignorant people are what they are, no matter the location.

I stopped down yesterday to photograph the workers tear down the carnival. I'll admit, it was kind of interesting (the people too) watching a carnival ride be dismantled in a matter of a couple hours.

Before this guy took a header, I asked how the carnival went over the weekend. He said they started traveling February (in Florida) and this one was "by far the worst one I've been to in the 5 years I've been doing this." He mentioned nothing of the crowd but said the numbers weren't even 1/2 of what they were told to project. This particular carnival is off to the Meijer Taylor Summer Festival on the other side of the state.

I like this photo because most everyone is wearing a "Safety First" t shirt...or at least the same color. But check out the guy in the hard hat (left), he's wearing his backwards. I wasn't quite sure who wins the lottery to wear the hard hats, as more than half went without.

[mejane]

Nice photos (cut to save bandwidth).

It definitely wasn't crowded when we went by Sunday afternoon. There were some people, but some of the rides weren't even going because nobody was there to ride them at that particular moment.

It certainly was pretty cool to see a carnival that big in that location. I took some photos at ~4:30am on July 4th. The place was completely deserted and kind of creepy. I'll try and post them sometime this week.

[Allison Slater]

There was a rather short car -> foot chase downtown on the 5th. I don't know what warranted the chase, nor what it resulted in.. only that the switch from car to foot was right outside Bistro Bella Vita. Saw cops zipping about with lights on a few times.

[Thrillhouse]

The carnival rides were packed when I went through Saturday evening. The food booths inside were deserted though. Same could be said about the food booths along the Monroe Mall area.

[Veloise]

Pics from Saturday.

[PR-15]

I was shooting aerials on July 5...this was taken at 4:30 in the afternoon. It was completely empty.