It won’t be long before Taylor Robertson can cross another item off his bucket list.
Now a data analyst living in San Diego, California, the Columbus native is due a surprise at his doorstep — a copy of the poster from the inaugural Market Street Festival, courtesy of his father.
Taylor was one of the festival’s first volunteers 20 years ago, when, at age 11, he rode his bicycle from South Columbus downtown to help vendors. His father, Doug Robertson, said Taylor woke up early on the Saturday morning of the first festival and went to assist. When Doug woke that morning, he said the only sign of Taylor was a note that said where he had gone.
“I don’t think he slept a wink that Friday night,” Doug said. “By the time I got to the festival downtown, (Taylor) was taking me around introducing me to all the vendors. It was just one of those great father-son days.”
To help celebrate the festival’s 20th anniversary this year, Main Street Columbus has printed 20 copies of the 1995 festival’s poster and is selling them for $50 each. Doug said when he heard about the poster sale, he jumped at the chance.
“Of all the things we did that year (in 1995), we never got a poster,” Doug said. “Taylor has mentioned that every year since, and so it’s kind of become a bucket list thing. I’ve been in overdrive trying to get it to him. I’ve already had it framed.
“I don’t know if it will mean more to me to give it to him than it will to him to receive it,” he added. “But I think it will have a great deal of sentimental value for him.”
Once an event that only stretched a few blocks along Fifth Street, the Market Street Festival’s 20th installment on May 1-2 promises to be much grander in scale. Sprawling through much of downtown, festival coordinator Amber Brislin said this year’s Market Street event will include 220 arts and crafts vendors, 30 food vendors and more than 20 musical acts performing on one of five stages. She said the festival will also feature a 5K run, a car show and dozens of children’s activities.
Musical entertainment will exclusively feature local bands that have performed over the last 20 years of the festival. Friday night’s kickoff concert, which will begin at 6 p.m. aont the Riverwalk stage, will feature the Mississippi Lions All-State Jazz Band, Juke Joint Gypsies, Big Joe Shelton and the Black Prairie Blues Ambassadors, and Swing Shift.
“So much goes into planning the festival and all of those pieces are starting to come together,” Brislin said. “We’re putting a lot of emphasis on this being the festival’s 20th year, and we’re working hard to make it bigger and better than ever. The Market Street Festival is such a big part of the community that everyone you ask will probably have a special memory or story to tell.”
A large part of Market Street’s success comes from its volunteers, Main Street Director Barbara Bigelow said. She said it takes about 400 volunteers working thousands of hours combined to make it happen. Moreover, she said 80 percent of festival volunteers return each year.
A Columbus native, Doug Robertson — now the local Cadence Bank community bank president — said he stood in awe of how far the festival had come since its humble beginnings.
“I’m really proud of the way the festival has grown and what it means to the community,” he said. “I like the way it unifies this community around something positive.”
For more information on this year’s Market Street Festival, visit www.columbusmainstreet.com.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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