Christian Music Festival in Johnsonville

"If everything goes according to plan, Johnsonville's Crossover Church could be the sponsor of one of the largest Christian music festivals in the state. Greg Hughes, who appeared before the Johnsonville City Council as a representative of Crossover Church on Tuesday, Jan. 10, presented the initial plans for the festival which is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 6. Above: Greg Hughes speaks to the Johnsonville City Council on Tuesday, Jan. 10 on the particulars of a Christian music festival that would… Show more be held at the Johnsonville High School football field on Saturday, Oct. 6. The festival would have the standard measures of inflatable attractions, carnival rides, venders and arts and crafts, but the musical attractions of the festival could make it one of the largest in the region. "We're hoping to bring in NewSong if they're on tour," Hughes said. "If not, then we're going to (try to get) a fall tour with Big Daddy Weave, Stellar Kart and Jason Gray and if that's the case, that's who we'll bring. These are big name Christian contemporary bands and they'll bring a lot of business into Johnsonville." Hughes said the church is anticipating attendance figures to be in the area of 4,000 to 5,000, with the majority of the festival being held in the vicinity of the Johnsonville High School football field. The festival, according to Hughes, is not intended to be something engineered solely by Crossover Church, but rather, the entire community instead. "The whole key for this thing is to get the whole community involved," he said. "We want to get all the churches involved and get all the businesses involved. Any of the food vendors or those type of people, we want to keep them as local as we can keep it as local as we can keep them." While the festival will no doubt bring in a large number of attendees, Hughes said the idea behind it is to keep it a family friendly as possible. The admission for the festival will be $10 per person, something Hughes said they tried to keep very reasonable for the amount of entertainment that will be present at the event. "Basically, we'll have three bands (plus) our Crossover band and maybe even one other band, so you're talking five bands for $10," he said. "And we're going to have motivational speakers in between each band." The only request Hughes and Crossover Church had of the city would be the use of the community building and its parking lot for some of the inflatable attractions, as well as the volunteering of a handful of off duty police officers to assist in directing traffic and security. According to Hughes, the money received from the festival would go to making the 2013 iteration of it even larger. "We're going to have someone who's bonded and (the money) will be in a separate account," he said. "That way, all the money, every penny will be accounted for." (www.scnow.com)

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