ARTESIA – Concerts, food and outdoor fun return to Artesia this month to show appreciation to the local community during this year’s Artesia Day Festival.
Events are taking place throughout the month for the festival, which began July 17 with a back-to-school bash, where 250 students received backpacks and school supplies.
Festivities continue Saturday with the Artesia Gospel Festival and a fish fry at 2 p.m, then wrap up Thursday-Aug. 3 with more concerts, dancing, food and a community baseball game.
“I feel like this (is) basically for our citizens of Artesia,” City Clerk Teresa Sanders told The Dispatch. “This is basically a day for them … (and) to celebrate the town.”
The festival is free to the public and will have at least 30 vendors downtown that will be selling food and clothes at this weekend’s events, and there will also be security and emergency management in case anyone is in need of assistance, Mayor Jimmy Sanders said.
On Thursday, festivities will kick off with a show hosted by Timo James, featuring performances from Big Mucci, JMoney & Trevor and Adaeze O and others. The Aug. 1 show will be hosted by DJ Mailman and will feature performers including Shae Nycole, Tonio Armani and Young Guy. Shows on Aug. 2 will be hosted by Trackdog, DJ Swagger and Boss Hog with performances from TK Soul, Lacee and Brei Carter and others.
The festival, which the city organizes, originated as the Artesia Hay Festival before being reinvented in 1998. Jimmy Sanders said the festival has seen immense growth since then. It started in its first year with around 100 people and has grown to more than 15,000 visitors at last year’s festival, he said.
“The intention is really to give back to the community and the surrounding community,” Jimmy Sanders said.
The festival serves as a homecoming to those who may have left Artesia and showcases what is special about the city and how it has changed over time, Teresa Sanders said.
“(We’re) showing people that have left this town … and moved on to different places, the things that we’re doing in the town,” she said. “And to show the great things that we have improved.”
The festival is expecting to have an even larger crowd for this year’s main festival days next weekend, said Teresa Sanders.
Jimmy Sanders most looks forward to seeing all of the people who return to Artesia from all across the country.
“We have people from at least 10 different states come back,” he said. “… We have people from everywhere.”
The hope for this year’s festival is to have a safe and fun time that gets everyone involved, Jimmy Sanders said.
“We are a small town that likes to give back,” he said. “… From the children to the seniors to the middle aged everybody gets something.”
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