PODCAST:

The Cville Lantern Parade will be at the Ting Pavilion at 8:30pm on July 3rd.

TRANSCRIPT:

Nadyah Ahmed:
You’re listening to WTJU Charlottesville. On Friday, July 3rd, the downtown mall will be hosting a lantern parade as part of its 50th anniversary celebration. For this week’s edition of Arts This Week. We spoke to Greer Achenbach, executive director of Friends of Charlottesville Downtown, to find out more.

Greer Achenbach:
My name is Greer Achenbach. I am executive director of Friends of Charlottesville Downtown, a nonprofit that supports the Charlottesville Pedestrian Mall and surrounding area.

Nadyah Ahmed:
What do you think we should know about the Lantern Parade?

Greer Achenbach:
For those of you that don’t know, 2026 is the 50th anniversary of the Downtown Mall, specifically July 3. It’s also the 250th anniversary of the country, the mall was a project done for the bicentennial, so those things line up, and it has been the Charlottesville Pedestrian Mall has been a very successful project. In the late 60s and 70s, there were over 200 pedestrian malls created in the United States, and 89% of those malls failed, so we feel incredibly lucky that we have this amazing community asset that has persevered here and are very excited to celebrate that. So, on July 3, there’s a full lineup of events, which everybody can find by going to our website, www.downtowncville.com/50th. There are history tours in the morning, both of them all and of an exhibit put on by the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society in Vault, Virginia in the morning. Then at 4pm there’s a birthday party for the mall at Central Place, where we’ll be giving away free Chaps ice cream. There’s face painters, there’s the Cville band, some speeches with a dedication to a new plaque on the mall. At 5:30 Baaba Seth is going to be at Fridays after Five at Ting Pavilion as part of the 50th anniversary celebration. And then immediately following that, there is a lantern parade down the mall and a light show happening on the Code building at the other, and so the parade will run from Ting Pavilion down to the Code.

Nadyah Ahmed:
Why a lantern parade, as opposed to another kind of celebration?

Greer Achenbach:
We came to the idea of a lantern parade because the arts are really the competitive advantage for downtown. We are an arts community and an arts destination, we have incredible world-class performing arts, visual arts, theater, music, you name it. We have just really incredible venues and things to see, and we wanted to lean into that. We wanted to partner with our arts organizations and showcase that as part of this 50 years, because so many of our arts organizations are in and around the downtown mall,

Nadyah Ahmed:
So was a part of your decision to have a lantern parade, because it engages the community?

Greer Achenbach:
It was important that we, we celebrate this anniversary in a way that was participatory, that was multi-gen, that was for the entire community to come and participate, so you do not have to come to our lantern making workshops. We encourage people to be making lanterns at home. We have a Pinterest board where you can go find inspiration. We encourage you to, you know, come lit up and color, you know, light up costumes, but you really feel like this is this is an invitation for you to be a part of this community with everybody else in Charlottesville, that for whom the mall is a hub of community

Nadyah Ahmed:
Is there anything else you think we should know?

Greer Achenbach:
Yes, so I don’t want to leave out the ending part, which is there is a special light show on the code building, and this is this is not a laser show, this is public art, you will see not just historical images, but kind of shown in a new way as we think about the past and future of the mall. So, if you’re interested in that very special art piece, we hope that you will join us. That is at the end of the parade, so 9pm on the Code Building at the west end of the mall.

Nadyah Ahmed:
The Lantern Parade will be at the Ting Pavilion at 8:30pm on July 3rd. To find out more about the 50th anniversary celebration, go to downtowncville.com Arts This Week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance, music, theater, and visual arts programming. Learn more at pvcc.edu. For WTJU, I’m Nadyah Ahmed.