Loose Leaf Notes

~ The following appeared in The Floyd Press on June 16th, 2011.

The 10^th annual Floydfest music festival kicks off six weeks from today.  The Floyd Fandango Beer and Wine Festival is just two weeks away.  Volunteers were busy last weekend preparing the 80 acre Blue Ridge Parkway site for the annual festivities.

Along with landscaping volunteers trading labor for festival tickets, were workers finishing building projects. New construction at the site includes a Japanese styled entrance to the Global Village, a permanent community coffee house, and a timber framed on-site headquarters building.

The headquarters building, situated where the old Floydfest office trailer used to be, was designed by Streamline Timberworks and has a reception area, a kitchen, a radio room, a loft area and bedroom.

Construction manager Bob Forman said the building was sponsored by the generous donations of Streamline; Acme Panel, who donated the panel for the walls and roof; and Griffith Lumber, who donated the floor and siding lumber.

He pointed out a patio for sitting, where staff will eat during the festival, and explained that the back porch will be incorporated into the nearby Beer and Wine Garden, providing a laid back place where VIP ticket holders can sit and enjoy stage performances.

The new Floydfest Community Coffee House is a collaboration of Red Rooster Coffee Roasters and the Black Water Loft.  Haden Polseno-Hensley of Red Rooster Coffee Roaster said the coffee house will sell Red Rooster’s freshly roasted, organic fair trade coffee by the bag and by the cup.  The post and beam structure is being built with white pine by Polseno-Hensley and family members and friends.

The new entrance to the Global Village is a Japanese Tori Gate designed by Streamline Timberworks and constructed by Streamline and Sticks and Stones Construction. “It seems a fitting way to honor our Japanese brothers and sisters given all that they have been through this year,” reads an update on the Floydfest webpage (floydfest.com)  Bruce Reisinger of Sticks and Stones Construction said the structure, made of indigenous locust and white oak, will be completed after Fandango with a top arch being added to the design.

The push to finish the building projects for the July 2 and 3 Fandango date was evident by the sound of hammers banging.  What isn’t finished by then will be completed for Floydfest, which promises a “best of the decade” musical line-up from July 28- 31.

~ For more information call Across the Way Productions at 888-823-3787.