Mark Calitri and Visit Owensboro hoping entertainment returns with Friday After 5
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By Keith Lawrence Messenger-Inquirer
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Sep 21, 2020 Updated 7 hrs ago
“There’s a lot of
activity going on in Owensboro,” Mark Calitri, president of the
Owensboro-Daviess County Convention & Visitors Bureau, told his board last
week. “We’re not hitting home runs, but we’re hitting a lot of singles. We’re
getting ready for the recovery.”
Festivals, tournaments
and concerts have been canceled this year by the coronavirus pandemic, causing
tens of millions of dollars worth of lost income to the tourism industry.
But Calitri is hoping
the recovery will start in time for Friday After 5, the free 16-week music
festival that brings an estimated 70,000-plus people to downtown during the
summer.
“We’re planning to
start on May 21,” Kirk Kirkpatrick, a Friday After 5 board member, told the CVB
at Tuesday’s meeting.
The festival has a
budget of $200,000 and “virtually all of our sponsors for this year said, ‘Put
us down for 2021’,” he said.
Calitri said, “Friday
After 5 is like a hotel room with a view of the ocean or a rooftop bar. It’s an
amenity, a good value for conventions and tournaments looking at Owensboro.”
Kirkpatrick introduced
Francine Marseille, Friday After 5’s first full-time executive director, to the
board.
“Francine is a great
new addition to the team,” he said. “We want to grow Friday After 5 in
excitement and as a springboard to other events on Thursday and Saturday
nights. We want to create more excitement downtown.”
Marseille said, “I’m
so excited about the possibilities. We want to do something wonderful for the
25th anniversary year in 2021.”
She worked in the
entertainment industry on the West Coast for more than 30 years before
returning home to Owensboro.
“I’ve worked the red carpet
at the Grammys, the Oscars, the American Music Awards and represented A-list
actors and bands,” Marseille told the board. “Maybe some of them will come to
visit us.”
She said she hopes she
can work out deals to bring some of those bands to Friday After 5.
John Froehlich, who
was executive director of the old Downtown Owensboro Inc., when it created
Friday After 5 in 1997 said earlier, “Credit where it’s due, the idea was
brought back from Charleston by Terry Woodward. He passed it on to Kirk with
the recommendation it be brought to the DOI board for consideration.”
That, he said, is how
the event began.
Woodward said that
isn’t entirely correct.
“I wanted to do
something to get more bluegrass in Owensboro,” he said. “I told Kirk that it
would be good for people to have a place to go after work on Fridays to
celebrate.”
The idea that he
brought back from out of town, Woodward said, was for the street festival that
became part of Friday After 5.
That came from a trip
to San Luis Obispo, California, which had a similar event, he said.
Keith Lawrence
270-691-7301, klawrence@messenger-inquirer.com
Keith Lawrence
270-691-7301
posted by Mark A. Calitri @ 7:17 AM
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