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US: Benson, NC – A Celebration For Farmer’s Best Friend – the Mule
The small town of Benson, North Carolina, with a population of around 3500, will swell to approximately 30,000 come September 21-24, 2017 when the 68th Annual Benson Mule Days Celebration, which honors the farmer’s best friend, the mule, is 
sponsored by the Benson Area Chamber of Commerce.
This festival is filled with family fun and activities for everyone young and old. The weekend is packed with rodeos, a mule pulling contest, arts and crafts, vendors, street dances, carnival rides, camping, parades, bluegrass shows and more.
Friday, visitors can enjoy many events including the Mule Competitions held in the Chamber Park and Arena. They will see mule coon jumping, a mule race, Best of Show and many other events. If you haven’t seen a mule competition this is a must see for the whole family.
Saturday is a big day at Benson Mule Days as thousands of spectators grapple for a place to sit or stand to observe the one of the biggest parades in North Carolina. Bands, floats, Shriner units, classic cars, antique tractors, unique entries, beauty queens, and hundreds of horses, mules, buggies, wagons make their way down Main Street of Benson beginning at 10am.
There are three rodeos of which the first begins on Friday night followed by a Saturday night and Sunday afternoon performance. A new event this year are Mule Day Dances. After the rodeos on Friday and Saturday nights, kick up your heels at the Chamber Park.
Get a complete schedule of events- here
Location: Various – see schedule
Date: Sept 21-24, 2017
Hours: Various – see schedule
Tel: 919-894-3825
bensonmuledays.com
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: johnstoncountync.org
US: Providence, RI – Five Days of Dance, Storytelling, Music and Theater at Providence’s Fringe Fest
Providence’s 4th annual Fringe Festival, FRINGEPVD 2017 – will be held July 24-29, 2017 and it has grown rapidly since it started.
The Providence Fringe Festival (FRINGEPVD) is open to anyone who wants to produce their own show. For some artists, it’s a once-a-year opportunity to create a show and for others it can be an opportunity to try something new.
This year more than three hundred individual theatre, music, dance, multi-media, and performing artists will be brought together for five nights in traditional and non-traditional performance venues throughout the Providence area.
Founded in 2014 by The Wilbury Theatre Group, the festival offers affordable tickets for outside-the-box performances that run from 40-60 minutes. Some are Free, while other tickets are $5 or $10 and can be purchased at the door. Audiences are encouraged to take full advantage of the variety of performing and visual artists participating in the fringe and attend performances that you wouldn’t normally attend, see things you wouldn’t otherwise see. Keep an open mind, have fun and check out multiple shows each night. 
Downtown venues include AS220 Black Box Theater, Aurora, Big Nazo Satellite Space, The Dean Hotel, Mathewson Street Black Box Theater, and the RISD Museum and more. Eleven venues in total. fringepvd.org/venues.html
Location: The Wilbury Theatre Group, 393 Broad Street, Providence, RI 02907 and various other venues
Dates: July 24 – July 29, 2017
Times: 6pm – 11pm
Tel: 401-400-7100
fringepvd.org
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: goprovidence.com
US: Fayetteville, NC – Secret Outlet For Bargain Athletic Wear
Young girls love the Soffe line of casual athletic wear, but there’s apparel for everyone else here too. Soffe is an all-American lifestyle activewear brand that makes sizes for the entire family including; toddlers, girls, juveniles, youth, juniors, women, and men including big and tall.
In solid colors, there’s varsity pants, jackets, hoodies, t-shirts, sweatshirts, running shorts, windbreakers, cheerleading clothing, ranger shorts and more.
It’s an outlet store, so pricing can go from $1 pieces of clothing piled in giant cardboard boxes to $29.99 on the racks. If you’re lucky you might arrive when they’ve opened the back warehouse room to the public. Then men, women and children might score their well-made clothing for the amazing price of $1-$3. Sandra loaded up the last time that she was there.
The Soffe juniors’ line has been strong in the brand’s cheer-leading apparel but has expanded to include yoga, dance and running. Be sure to check out their performance wear, which features technical fabrics.
Their outstanding quality stems from their roots as a distributor to the military. This line is tough, durable and dependable, and it is designed to channel America’s original athlete: the soldier.
There’s another location in Smithfield at Exit 
95 next door to JR,
49F Dr M.L.K. Jr. Way, Selma, NC 27576
919- 965-0062
Location: Soffe Outlet Store, 1005 Dunn Rd, Fayetteville 28312
Hours: Fayetteville: Mon – Sat 9:30 – 5:30, Sun – closed
Smithfield: Mon – Sat 10 – 6, Sun 12 – 6
Tel: 910-483-1776
soffe.com
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: visitfayettevillenc.com
US: Savannah, GA – Celebrate the Fourth of July on a Fireworks Cruise
Celebrate our nation’s independence with Savannah Riverboat Cruises’ special Fireworks Cruise on Tuesday, July 4, 2017. Relax and enjoy the sights and sounds of a city founded in 1733.
During the one-and-a-half hour cruise, guests can dance to the music of the riverboat DJ spinning their favorite tunes and see a spectacular waterfront fireworks display. Each riverboat has two climate-controlled decks for comfort and an outdoor deck for viewing. A cash bar and snack bar will be available during the cruise.
Boarding starts at 8:30pm, sailing begins at 9 pm and the riverboat returns at 10:30 p.m. For more information about the Fourth of July Fireworks Cruise, call the Savannah Riverboat Cruises at (912) 232-6404 or click here to visit their website.
Location: Savannah Riverboat Cruises, 9 East River Street, Savannah, GA 31412
Date: Tues, July 4, 2017
Hours: 9pm -10:30pm (Boarding at 8:30pm)
Tel: 912-232-6404
savannahriverboat.com
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: savannah.com
US: Del Ray, VA – Livin’ Good in the ‘Hood – Well Ray Festival
Decided it’s time to start looking and feeling better then this event is for you. On June 24, 2017, in Del Ray, Virginia (a neighborhood in Alexandria) “where Main Street still exists”, it’s the 4th Annual Well Ray Festival – a community-wide effort to highlight resources for living healthily and happily. 
Browse health and lifestyle inspired tents, take free exercise classes, and enjoy therapeutic massages, acupuncture, physical therapy consultations, chiropractic adjustments, nutritional counseling and blood pressure screenings. Check out wellness-inspired fashion from local fitness clothing designers, jewelers, and boutiques.
You will find the outdoor celebration of health and wellness at the following locations: the open field across from Mind the Mat Pilates & Yoga, the 2200 block of Mount Vernon Avenue will have Fitness Demos and classes (2213 Mt. Vernon Avenue), the Del Ray Farmer’s Market for Cooking and healthy bites, and the adjacent parking lot beside it (behind United Bank 2401 Mt. Vernon Avenue) and then the Mt. Vernon Recreation Center (2701 Commonwealth Avenue) for vendors, exhibitors, wellness presentations and more.
Win prizes and make sure to bring your mat and be prepared to move. Enjoy free yoga, Pilates, CrossFit, Spin, Barre and dance classes led by fitness, health, and wellness experts. So much fun and the whole family can get involved in a healthy lifestyle.
Last year’s SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:
8:15AM Outdoor Yoga with Mind the Mat
9:45AM Pilates Boot Camp with Mind the Mat
10:45AM CrossFit OldTown Kids Field Day (Sheriff’s Department vs. Fire Department Tug-o-War)
11:45AM Outdoor Yoga with Mind the Mat
12:30PM Swet Ride/Barre Tech/TRUE Circuit
1:30PM Stretch Class with Running Brooke
1:45PM Goal and Vision Setting with lululemon
THIRD FLOOR KIDS YOGA AND DANCE:
11-11:20AM/11:30-11:50AM/12:00-12:20PM Dance with TippiToes
12:30PM-2:00PM Yoga with YoKids
And lots of delicious and nutritious FOOD!
Location: Along Mount Vernon Avenue, Del Ray, VA
Date: Sat, June 24, 2017
Time: 9am – 1pm
Tel: 703-683-2228
wellraydelray.com
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: visitalexandriava.com
US: New Haven, CT – International Festival of Arts & Ideas
What do you get when you assemble authors, scientists, and leading innovators alongside outstanding artists? The International Festival of Arts & Ideas – a 15-day festival of performing arts, lectures; dynamic public programs to captivate, entertain, and motivate a diversity of communities.
Each June, the Festival takes over the theaters, open spaces, and courtyards of New Haven, Connecticut with performances and dialogues that tickle the senses, engage the mind, and inspire the soul. More than 80% of festival programs are completely free to the public, including events that feature some of the most influential jazz, classical, dance, and theater artists of our time.
This year will feature an array of world-premiere theater performances, internationally renowned musicians, modern dance, circus theater, weighty discussions on contemporary issues, food and bicycle tours. Be empowered through the rhythms of BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play, healed through the communal music of (Be)longing, and surprised by international premieres from China, cutting-edge, retro-tech experiences of Manual Cinema, and LEO’s gravity defying theatrics. In addition, more than a dozen new performances and experiences in ALTAR’d Spaces surrounding the New Haven Green, the Big Read, The Wailers and Rusted Root… the line up is bounteous!
Photo Credits:New Haven Green – Judy Sirota, Pop Up Fair – Haven Anderson
Location: Town Green and various venues throughout the city
Downtown New Haven, CT 06510
Dates: June 3- 24, 2017
Hours: Various
Tel: 203-498-1212
artidea.org/festival
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: visitnewhaven.com
US: Newburyport, MA – Reptiles, Comedy Juggler, Flash Mob, Drumming and Art at Newburyport’s 2-Day Fest
Celebrate the season at historic Newburyport Spring Festival, a tradition upheld for over 30 years on Memorial Day Weekend. Enjoy great live music, art, fine crafts, activities for kids, and food from Newburyport’s outstanding restaurants at this 2-day FREE festival featuring entertainment for the whole family -rain or shine. 
Sunday -Entertainment
10:30am-11:15am in Market Square -Bryson Lang – Comedy Juggler – audiences will see a family-friendly show and an energetic personality performing inventive and clever routines that mix comedy, audience participation, ball spinning, flying sombreros, ball bouncing, fire-juggling, well-crafted timing, huge spinning bouncing rings, giant Beach Balls, improv, and a few surprises.
10am, 12pm, and 2pm -Theater in the Open – Flash Mob on Inn Street
Live Music
1pm – 4pm Live Music in Market Square – 617 Band – Covering your favorite party and dance hits!
11pm, 1pm, 3pm – 30 min sets on Inn Street – Zach Field Drum Studio
Art
“Emerging at Any Age” – A group of Newburyport’s finest senior artists from just starting out to artists that have had long careers in art. Gallery will be on Pleasant Street.
Monday Entertainment
Kids Entertainment from 10:30-11:30am in Market Square – Reptile Show
Come and meet some of the friendliest reptiles in New England. Brought to you by Zoo Creatures/New England Reptile, they will teach you about some most impressive animals. From giant snakes to prehistoric lizards, you can learn, touch, hold and hug.
Live Music in Market Square
Eagle in the Attic – Newburyport band performing 
Location: Downtown Newburyport, Market Square, Newburyport, MA 01950
Date: Sun May 28 – Mon May 29, 2017
Hours: 10am – 5pm
Tel: 978-462-6680
newburyport.com/events-in-newburyport/
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: newburyportchamber.org
US: Lexington, MA – China’s Golden Dragon Acrobats: Breathtaking Showmanship of Magical Stunts
The ancient art of Chinese Acrobatics is an old and long running tradition that began in China well over two thousand years ago. Over its long and rich history it has developed as one of the most popular art forms among the Chinese people.
The Golden Dragon Acrobats represent the best of a time-honored custom that combines award-winning acrobatics, ancestral dance, spectacular costumes, ancient and contemporary music and theatrical techniques to create an unforgettable experience of breathtaking skill and spellbinding beauty.
The legendary Golden Dragon Acrobats performs at Cary Hall with their amazing feats of athleticism, daring, heart-stopping stunts and the finesse of the centuries-old art form.This unique cirque spectacular showcases a tour de force of traditional Chinese acrobats highlighting their remarkable skills and physicality.
Boasting the best in gasp-inducing juggling with props as varied as ladders and giant spinning wheels, tumbling and balancing acts, the performers show just why they’re world renowned. Their spectacular artistry and colorful accoutrements are combined with cirque-style acts. The traditional and contemporary musical score and explosive choreography creates an exciting show of mesmerizing mastery showmanship and breathtaking, magical stunts that is nothing short of phenomenal.
Location: Cary Hall, 1605 Massachusetts Ave, Lexington, MA 02420
Date: Sat, April 8, 2017
Time: 3 -5pm
Tel: 617-531-1257
caryhalllexington.com/wordpress1/?projects=the-golden-dragon-acrobats-april-8
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: merrimackvalley.org
US: Baltimore, MD – Annapolis Spring Sailboat Show
Light City is a FREE festival that transforms Baltimore with large-scale light installations, performances, music and innovation. Central to Light City is the BGE Light Art Walk along Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, featuring more than 50 attractions including visual arts such as illuminated sculptures, projections, interactive technologies, performances, concerts, food vendors and a children’s area.
Performance artists bring Light City to life with entertaining acts including fire (a showcase of fire and LED performances utilizing dance, flow arts, circus arts, and music), illuminated puppets, projections, stilt walkers, dance, musical entertainment at the Inner Harbor Amphitheater and along the BGE Light Art Walk.
Inner Harbor Skyline Photo Courtesy of Baltimore Office of Promotion and Arts
Music is a major attraction at Light City. The festival features a full schedule of FREE concerts including local, regional and renowned DJs, bands and musicians across every genre.
Families can visit Mini Light City in Pierce’s Park for hands-on, illuminated craft activities in a youth makers’ tent, children’s entertainers and whimsical snacks such as lighted cotton candy. The park is home to a sound garden by artist David Hess.
Congregation_KMA_Photo by: Tom Wexler
From the south shore of the Inner Harbor to Harbor East, festival -goers can explore 1.5 miles of world-class installations – all free, accessible and open to the public.
Attendees of the Light City Baltimore festival are encouraged to download the free app prior to their visit to see all that the festival has to offer including the festival map, schedule and general festival information. lightcity.org/light-city-baltimore-app
The Pool Photo by Jen Lewin.
Location: Baltimore’s Inner Harbor – lightcity.org/map
Date: Fri, Mar 31 – Sat, Apr 8, 2017
Hours: lightcity.org/schedule
Tel: 410-752-8632
lightcity.org
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: visitbaltimore.org
US: Mystic, CT – Go Green for Year Fourteen of the Mystic Irish Parade
Each year, a sliver of Ireland is brought to the small town of Mystic, Connecticut when friends and family from near and far celebrate Celtic and Gaelic customs and traditions.
The 14th Annual Mystic Irish Parade is Mystic’s largest single day event; 30,000 plus spectators and 2,000 plus marchers will march from the Mystic Seaport to downtown Mystic. Kicking off promptly at 1pm, the parade, extends from the Mystic Seaport Museum to the Mystic Art Association.
About 2,200 local community participants will march alongside creatively designed floats and dance to the Celtic music echoing throughout the village while over 32,000 people will fill the streets of Mystic to cheer and commemorate the Irish holiday of St. Patrick’s Day. Fun for the whole family, the parade will be hosting Celtic cultural events, outstanding pipe bands, fife & drum ensembles, and marching bands.
Better yet, the Red Hot Chilli Pipers are back! The Red Hot Chilli Pipers are a famous bagpipe band known internationally, with an ensemble of pipers, guitarists, keyboards and drummers. With groundbreaking fusion of traditional Irish music and rock anthems, they are sure to make this year’s parade the best yet.
On March 20th we can all be a little Irish! Try to arrive early as police will be closing off 
some of the routes to the marching area. The Mystic parade starts at Mystic Seaport’s South Lot and heads into Historic Downtown Mystic where the parade’s “marquis act” will perform. (photo credit: George Tazzini and Larry St. Pierre)
Location: Downtown Mystic, Mystic, CT 06355
Date: Sun, March 19, 2017
Time: Parade Kicks off at 1pm
Tel: 860-572-9578
mysticirishparade.org
For Regional Accommodations: thisismystic.com