Arts, Beats & Eats: A Guide To Parking, Dining And Jamming
By Christy Strawser
CBS Detroit Managing Editor
It's not just arts, it's not just beats and it's not just eats -- That's right, the trifecta that is the Arts, Beats & Eats festival returns Friday and continues through Monday in downtown Royal Oak.
Going? Here's everything you need to know to navigate the scene, stay calm and serene and enjoy the region's biggest summer blockbuster.
Getting around
Festival hours are 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday. And organizers predict traffic in and around the festival will be bananas during most of those hours. Tune in to news radio WWJ, 950 am, which will update listeners on which lots are open at any given time. Organizers are also encouraging visitors to go car-free and bicycle to the event by providing free bike parking through the festival grounds. Eight hundred bicycle parking spots will be available on Washington Avenue, just south of Lincoln; There will be 1,000 bike spots on the north end, on Washington near Second Avenue.
If you don't want to bike or park, you must be thinking SMART. That's right, the SMART bus system will have routes that take you right into the heart of downtown Royal Oak from virtually anywhere in the metro area. Call SMART at 866-962-5515 to get route suggestions or visit smartbus.org and check out the Google Transit Trip Planning tool. Downtown employees and event volunteers will get permits to park at local churches and public facilities. See a map of the festival here.
Parking
Do not try to park in a downtown Royal Oak neighborhood. Period. Street parking permits are issued for residents only and nearly 2,000 people who tried to brave it with on-street parking last year were issued $50 tickets. To stay on the right side of the law, utilize city operated lots in and near the downtown. Spots cost $15 per car. Better yet, stay out of the downtown fray by using the shuttle location at Royal Oak High School, 1500 Lexington Blvd., near 14 Mile and Crooks, which costs $10 per car, per day. A free shuttle will whisk you to and from the festival. Click here for locations of the 13 parking lots available near Arts, Beats & Eats.
Cost
Factor the $3 per-person admission fee into your wallet considerations, 50 percent of which goes to local charities. Children 3 years old and under get in free. Volunteers will hand out $3 coupons for shopping and dining at local establishments. Food tickets are 10 for $16, with many menu items priced at five to eight tickets each. Ten carnival rides are available for kids and the young at heart. Prices are $2.50 to $3.75 per ride.
Quick hits
Dogs are forbidden; chairs are banned; no outside food or drink is allowed.
The Arts
Arts, Beats & Eats claims a title as one of the nation's premier juried art shows. This year the 160 booths will feature ceramics, fabric and fiber, leather, painting, photography, sculpture, wood, digital art, drawing, graphics and printmaking, glass, jewelry and metal. Artists will be from all over the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The show recently became the only one in Michigan to rate in the Top 10 of the Art Fair Source Book in terms of sales.
The Kids
Among the high points for the younger set will be the Meijer Kids Zone with entertainment programming throughout all four days of the festival (ventriliquist anyone?). The Creative Arts Studio of Royal Oak Kids Arts & Crafts is expanding this year at Seventh and Center streets with a wide array of hands-on activities like painting, pottery painting, and beading mosaics. Kid-friendly acts like clowns, musicians, magicians, story tellers and pupper masters will perform on the The Oakland County Parks Kids Stage.
The Eats
The eats include nearly 70 vendors -- a 25 percent increase over last year. And this is not just festival food. Think about tasty temptations from Gayle's Chocolates in Royal Oak and Ryba's on Mackinac Island, sushi, Cuban sandwiches and tasty tapas. If you're not convinced the menu will go beyond traditional festival food, visit the Soaring Eagle Cuisine Machine, which should be difficult to miss. It will offer a prime rib cart, filet of beef with jumbo lump crab meat, a roasted grape tomato and arugula sweet corn salad with smoked bacon bits and lasagna with Italian sausage. Click here for a list of every restaurant, catering company and food outpost you can sample.
The Duel
Food won't just be fun, it will be deadly serious, too, when local top chefs fight to the finish in The Duel. Billed as an "extreme cook-off," The Duel will offer up to $10,000 in prize money. The challenge is that the chefs will be tasked with creating an impromptu masterpiece using stock pantry items, plus a secret ingredient. The final two rounds will happen Friday, with the final elimination beginning at 2:30 p.m. Sunday on the Mirepoix Cooking School International Stage, at the corner of Sixth and Lafayette. Click here for a list of cooking school competitors.
The Beats
Here's what we've all been waiting for: the entertainment lineup. Headliners and 200 local bands will perform on 11 stages. National acts include Vince Gill, Bret Michaels, Panic! at the Disco, Starship, Pyschedelic Furs, George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars, former frontman for Foreigner Lou Gramm, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Beatlemania Live. Click here for a complete line-up of musical acts.
