Blues, Brews, and BBQ Festival Moved to Champaign

The Blues, Brews, and Barbeque festival has been a highlight of summertime in Urbana since 2008. I have many fond memories of the festival, as do many of my peers. Many Urbana High School students enjoyed the weekend of the festival as a chance to get outside, and enjoy downtown Urbana. This summer, however, the festival is heading to the other side of Wright Street; the Blues, Brews,

bluesbrewsbbq — http://www.smilepolitely.com/news/sp_radio_podcsast_urbanas_blues_brews_and_bbq_fest/

and BBQ festival is moving to downtown Champaign.

Downtown Champaign is already doing much better than downtown Urbana, and this summer they’ve gained another event. The Sweet Corn Festival has always been a huge business provider for downtown Urbana, along with the Blues, Brews, and BBQ festival. The festival gave people a chance to enjoy our nice little downtown, and visit all the local businesses. Champaign, whose downtown is already doing well, now has one more attraction.

It is sad to see the festival go, and many Urbana kids will probably not get a chance to drive out to Champaign for the festival this summer. Blues, Brews, and BBQ was a place for local BBQ restaurants to show off their best food, and for people of legal age to enjoy a drink or two. It had many inflatable attractions for children, and any Urbana student could count on seeing some familiar faces among the crowd.

It was also a weekend when blues musicians near and far came to town and shared their love for this great American musical style. Bluesy bass lines and blaring guitar solos filled the air while people visited all the local attractions. Fans of blues music would come from all over the state for this event, and probably knew Urbana because of it, but now Urbana’s name will no longer be associated with the fun-filled weekend of food and music.

UHS Sophomore Maxwell Charles Dragoo said, “I’ve always loved the festival; it was one of the highlights of summer. Now that it’s in Champaign I don’t know if I’ll make it out there this year.” Dragoo is a guitarist himself, and enjoyed the blues guitar music played all day for one weekend of the year.

The coordinators of the festival decided on the move because they were afraid the event was getting too big for downtown Urbana. The city of Champaign believes this could become their biggest summer event, even bigger than the Taste Of Champaign festival.

The city of Urbana still has the Sweet Corn festival to look forward to this year, but I’m sure many residents are disappointed to see Blues, Brews and Barbeque go.