Changes coming for Deep Roots Festival
Published 6:25 pm Monday, October 14, 2024
Saturday marks the 21st annual Deep Roots Festival, and changes have been made to make this year’s event the best one yet.
“…I can’t believe it’s the 21st year of the Deep Roots Festival,” said Frank Pendergast, festival director. “Leaves are changing, weather is getting cold, it’s starting to be that time of the year.”
Over the last several years, a few changes have been made, one of which was a major one just last year.
Pendergast said it involved food trucks.
“We’re trying to be more regional, local with our food trucks,” Pendergast told Mayor Mary Parham-Copelan and city council members during a meeting Tuesday night at City Hall. “Before, we didn’t have any local food trucks that could come out and serve us. We were having to pull trucks out of Atlanta. But now we have several businesses who are getting into that.”
Pendergast, owner of The Brick restaurant and several other businesses in Milledgeville, said there will be seven regional food trucks and four or five food trucks from Milledgeville.
“We’re very pleased that we that and we can spend our money locally,” Pendergast said. “We hope we all do.”
In keeping with a regional concept, the Deep Roots Festival Committee has tried to make the event even more inclusive by featuring regional and local acts on the main stage.
“By doing so, we’re cutting some of our costs,” Pendergast said.
The Deep Roots Festival is a free event.
“There is no charge, whatsoever, for coming into The Deep Roots Festival at all,” Pendergast said. “The only fees would be if you want to buy some food or you want to buy some things from the arts and crafts vendors and of course, the kids zone still has tickets. But everything else is free and open to the public.”
He said the event went admission-free last year.
“We had an enormous turnout,” Pendergast said. “We had over 35,000 people come to Milledgeville. We pulled cellphone data and it was really close to 40,000.
“That’s a lot of people, y’all,” Pendergast said.
The director of the local festival said committee members typically choose a Saturday when the University of Georgia football team is idle.
“It’s the same day that GMC tries to get for their homecoming,” Pendergast said. “This year, we chose not to do that. So, it’s not GMC homecoming week. It’s also not Georgia College parents’ week. So, what that does is free up more hotel rooms for more guests to come, and we’re kinda spreading out the money and the love in our community. I think that’s a great thing, and a big step forward for us and we’re excited about that.”
Other changes this year center in the layout of the festival.
Pendergast said the food trucks will be located at the post office.
“We’ve got over 72 vendors in our arts and crafts this year,” he said. “They’re going to be running both the 100 block north and south on Wayne Street. We have over 22 vendor spaces that we call our commercial corridor. Those are non-arts and craftspeople.”
Vendor spaces are sold out.
City Alderwoman Dr. Collinda Lee commended Pendergast and other committee members for making the event free to the public.
“Thank you for letting it be free because now more children can come,” Lee said.
Pendergast pointed out another change.
“Instead of splitting the stages and having the community stage and the main stage, we thought it was both financially smart and better for our local people to have them on a bigger stage,” Pendergast said. “So, all of the events, all of the music, all of the community events are going to be held on the main stage. So, they get to get up on the big stage with the lighting and all of that stuff. I think it will a lot more fun. And we can get more people up on the stage as well.”
The Deep Roots Festival is slated for Saturday in downtown Milledgeville.