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ASHLAND PARKS & RECREATION Siskiyou de Mayo ready for debut Ashland Music festival set for Saturday in Lithia Park Comment By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Follow @@Joe_Zavala99 DailyTidings.com By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Follow @@Joe_Zavala99 Posted May. 12, 2016 at 8:49 PM By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Follow @@Joe_Zavala99 Posted May. 12, 2016 at 8:49 PM » Social News Three years after Ashland Parks & Recreation staff first floated the idea of a spring music festival, the first Siskiyou de Mayo will take over the Butler Bandshell and, recreation manager Lonny Flora hopes, make a big enough splash to warrant an annual return. The event, whose complete title is “The Siskiyou de Mayo: A World Music Festival,” will be held at from 1 to 6 p.m. Saturday in Lithia Park and feature live music from six bands. Billed as celebration of multiculturalism with international music and dance, the festival’s first lineup will open with Unity African Drum and Dance from 1:05-1:35 p.m. and wrap up with the Frankie Hernandez Band from 5:20-6:05 p.m. The other bands scheduled to perform are Ka Pi’o Ke Anuenue (performing with Ha’ena), Rutendo Marimba, Maraval Road Steel Band and Salsa Brava. “It is our intention to make this an annual event,” Flora said. “I guess it will come down to a review of how it goes on Saturday to kind of chart the course for the following years. I feel like we have been fairly successful in getting some initial sponsorships and interest into the event from the business community and we hope to grow and expand that, and that in turn will grow and expand the event itself.” The festival is open to the community and free of charge and, in an effort to streamline transportation to and from the festival and minimize parking congestion, the city has partnered with Main Street Tours, which will provide free pick up and drop off services at multiple locations around Ashland. Main Street Tours will begin its pickup service at noon and will hit five locations: the Bi-Mart parking lot, Southern Oregon University off Stadium Way, The Grove (1195 E. Main St.), Mountain Meadows and the Ashland Plaza. Drop-offs will take passengers back to the same spots starting at 4 p.m. A link to the bus schedule is available on the city’s website (www.ashland.or.us). Flora says seven official sponsors have stepped up to help stage the event, including Rands Art Design, which will be on site producing Siskiyou de Mayo T-shirts from its mobile print shop. The shirts will feature the event logo that was created by illustrator and designer Rose Cassano and cost $15 (cash only). Food trucks will also be set up near the bandshell. Flora said for all the work that goes into putting on a new event, the most important thing is the product itself. “I really want it to kind of grow naturally and not try to do too much all at once to where it could fall flat on its face,” he said. “So we’re primarily focused on the product, the music, making sure that the production of that goes well and everybody’s satisfied with that. And then of course having some of the amenities — we have a lot of ideas and interest about how much more we could add into it, however we don’t really have the staffing and the manpower to make that happen just yet. Again, as we get more interest, more sponsors and more people wanting to help out I think we could definitely turn this into a really nice thing for the community.” Ashland parks department staffers began considering the possibility of hosting a music festival in 2013, but Flora said it wasn’t until last September that a date had been set and plans officially made. How many people are expected to attend? Flora doesn’t know what to expect because there are variables in play, especially the weather. Saturday’s forecast calls for temperatures in the high 60s with a shower and thunderstorm. “You know, this is the first one so it’s really hard to say,” he said. “The weather’s a little bit — we gotta wait and see what happens. I think a little bit of cloud cover would be good for us because the sun kind of goes right into the bandshell. But we’re hoping to see at least a couple hundred. We’ve been working really hard on getting the word out on it and getting press out on it.” Joe Zavala is a reporter for the Ashland Daily Tidings. Reach him at 541-821-0829 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @Joe_Zavala99. By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Follow @@Joe_Zavala99 DailyTidings.com By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Follow @@Joe_Zavala99 Posted May. 12, 2016 at 8:49 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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