Festival of the Arts 2012 begins in GR

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Thousands of people will be going to downtown Grand Rapids this weekend to enjoy Festival of the Arts 2012.

The free event began at noon Friday and lasts until 7 p.m. Sunday.

If it rains then all stage activity will be suspended and resumed when the sun returns.

There are 30 food booths, six stages and merchandise tents.

The original co-chairs of Festival in 1970 were Betty Jo Crosby and Dan Heines, who said the current Festival is much different than the first one.

"It's a very huge scale now, but it was much smaller at the time," Crosby told 24 Hour News 8. "We worked hard to get people down here to buy into the concept, and it's worked."

"I'm not the least bit surprised it's still going strong," Heines added. "With GR being what it is, we've always had a huge (amount of) volunteers who want to make the city better, make things happen around the town and here we are."

Many major streets will be closed --

• Ottawa Avenue at Michigan Street NW will only be open for the parking ramps
• Monroe Center between Monroe Avenue and Ionia Street
• All that cross over Ottawa Avenue like Pearl Street, Lyon Street, and a small part of Fountain Street

You can even park for free at most meters during the weekend.

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Inside WOODTV.com -- Complete Festival of the Arts information