The Going to the Dogs Band is hosting a Car Show  to benefit Friends of the Colleton County Animal Shelter (FoCCAS), an organization very close to the band’s heart.

Going above and beyond with their commitment to animal groups and other deserving causes, Going to the Dogs Band is a 100-percent charity and benefit band. All members of the band refuse to accept any payment for their time and talent. They are dedicated to donating all money earned to Animal Shelters and Rescues, oxygen masks for animals for fire stations, bullet-proof vests for K-9 Police Units, as well as other charities including human, environmental, and other worthy causes.

Music and fireworks will once again fill the air as part of Boston’s legendary July 4 celebrations attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors to the birthplace of American independence.

Deemed one of the most popular Massachusetts summer events,  the Pops will once again throw one of the country’s largest Fourth-of-July parties. The Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular concert is FREE and open to the public.

Entering their 133rd season of entertaining audiences in Boston and beyond, feature Conductor Keith Lockhart and the Boston POPS Orchestra will take the stage at the Hatch Shell, on the Esplanade, performing the identical concerts on July 3rd and 4th, and on July 4th when the concert wraps up, a stunning half-hour display of pyrotechnics.

The headliner for the 2018 Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, is American singer/songwriter Rachel Platten, whose mega hit “Fight Song”  topped the charts, will headline the 2018 Boston POPS Fireworks Spectacular Concert. The event will also feature 2 Grammy Award-winning artists, Rhiannon Giddens from The Carolina Chocolate Drops and Folk-Rock Duo Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls.

The legendary singer/actor/dancer, Academy Award Winner Rita Moreno will make a special appearance on the July 3 and 4 performances in honor of the Leonard Bernstein centennial tribute.

Event Schedule:

Celebrate America with this amazing concert and 4th of July fireworks extravaganza.

Photo Credits: Michael Blanchard

Location: DCR Hatch Shell, 47 David G. Mugar Way, Boston, MA 02108
Date: July 3- July4, 2018
Time: July 3rd, concert 8pm -10pm, July 4th, concert  8pm – 10:30pm, fireworks display 10:30pm – 11pm.
bostonpopsjuly4th.org
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: bostonusa.com

Grab your spoons and mark your calendars for Scooper Bowl – all-you-can-eat Ice Cream Festival.

Celebrating its 36th year in 2018, the Scooper Bowl is now a three-day event that dishes out 20 tons of the summer’s finest ice cream to more than 40,000 ice cream lovers from across the nation. Enjoy a lot of great entertainment and fun activities at this country’s largest all-you-can-eat ice cream festival.

What is most impressive about the ice cream festival is that all ice cream companies donate all the ice cream, labor, scoopers, and products needed to make the event happen each year. Though they are competitors for 51 weeks of the year, during the first week of June they come together to create an event that is now known as the “unofficial start of summer” in New England.

Made possible by the generous contributions of the industry’s largest ice cream companies, the Scooper Bowl has raised more than $6.3 million in the past 35 years for cancer research and patient care at the world-renowned Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Get Your Tickets 

*Pricing will increase at the door – Kids under 3 are free

Whether you’re a visitor to the area or professional ice-cream-eater, you play a huge part their our mission to conquer cancer.

Ice Cream Flavors

Baskin-Robbins Boston Cream Pie Cannoli Be With You OREO® ‘n Caramel Triple Grape Ice Beckon Ice Cream (formerly Minus the Moo) – Thursday only, lactose-free Vanilla Chocolate Espresso Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Mint Chip Chocolate Candy Crunch Strawberries & Sweet Cream Black Raspberry Confetti Ben & Jerry’s Gimme Smore™ Caramel Almond Brittle non-dairy AmeriCone Dream® Chocolate Shake It™ Breyers Nautral Vanilla Oreo® Cookies & Cream Mint Chip Edy’s Birthday Cake Dulce Rainbow Sherbet Friendly’s Triple Caramel Peanut Heaven Hunka Chunka PB Fudge® Rockin’ Poppin’™ Cotton Candy Cookies ‘N Cream Black Raspberry Haagen-Dazs Chocolate Salted Fudge Truffle Non-Dairy Hood Hood® New England Creamery Limited Edition Chocolate Churro Hood® New England Creamery Limited Edition Purple Panda Hood® Coffee Cookies ‘n Cream Hood® Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Lactaid – lactose-free Lactaid® Cookies ‘n Cream Lactaid® Mint Chocolate Chip Lactaid® Mocha Almond Chip Lactaid® Salted Caramel Rosev Dairy Foods Coconut Rum Raisin Purple Cow Twisted Sea Turtle Vice Cream Afternoon Delight Bourbon Mash L’Orange A Trois Minted Higher Grounds Yasso Stick Bars: Pistachio Brittle Fudge Brownie Coconut Caramel Chocolate Chip Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Scoops: Party Animal  Mint Championchip Rolling in the Dough Caramel Pretzelmania Coffee Brownie Break Location: City Hall Plaza, 1 City Hall Square, Boston, MA 02201 Date: June 5 – 7, 2018 Time: Noon – 8pm scooperbowl.org For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: bostonusa.com

For over 40 years the Georgia Sea Islands Festival on St. Simons Island, Georgia has celebrated the African American musical traditions, crafts, and food of the coastal barrier islands.

Each year the highlight of the festival are the musicians – young, old, and some “with an old heart” — who perform traditional spirituals, work songs, and plays handed down by their ancestors. Live entertainment includes The Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters.

There will be cuisine such as  smoked mullet, fried fish, sweet potato pone, homemade ice cream, and demonstrations of traditional Gullah Geechee knitting cast net and sweet grass baskets.

The Georgia Sea Islands Festival is FREE and filled with fun and entertainment for the whole family.

Location: Gascoigne Bluff Park, 1000 Arthur J Moore Dr, St Simons Island, GA 31522
Date: Sat, June 2, 2018
Time: 11am – 6pm
Tel: 912- 634-0330
ssiheritagecoalition.org/2018/02/16/georgia-sea-islands-festival-2018
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: goldenisles.com

Downtown Smithfield is the place to be on Saturday, May 5th for the much anticipated 34th annual Ham & Yam Festival,  which occupies several blocks and attracts thousands of people.

With pig races, inflatables, vendors, entertainment, and ham and yam foods, it’s a fun day for the entire family.  Craft and commercial vendors line the streets, food vendors offer a variety of fair foods and menu items featuring country ham and sweet potatoes, and local bands and dance groups perform on the festival’s three stages throughout the day.

The festival features a barbecue cook-off, rubber duck race, 5k,  a petting zoo and the always popular “What’s That Yam Thing?” contest; where children are encouraged to play with their food by turning sweet potatoes into works of art.  As well as the Sweet Potato Pie Eating Contest where 10 participants will eat like pigs, competing to be the fastest person to eat their sweet potato pie without using their hands.

Get to Smithfield and enjoy the Ham & Yam Festival,  packed with delicious homemade ham biscuits, barbeque pork, and sweet potato pie.

Location: Neuse River Amphitheatre, 200 S. Front Street, Smithfield, NC 27577
Date: Sat,  May 5, 2018
Time: 9am – 9pm
Tel: 919-934-0887
hamandyam.com
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: johnstoncountync.org

Discover the beauty of sheep, the warmth of wool and the delicious taste of lamb during a fun-filled weekend at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, 45 years of celebrating all things sheep, from hoof to handwoven.

With over 275 vendors, more than 800 sheep, and workshops, food, and entertainment, there is something for everyone. Check out the working sheep dogs or sheep shearing demonstrations, learn how to prepare lamb, cheese making, take a spinning class, or shop for a variety of fleece, yarn and roving.

The Parade of Breeds will introduce you to a large variety of sheep breeds, and the Sheep to Shawl Contest will demonstrate shearing, carding, spinning, and weaving a final product in just a few hours.

There are auctions and sales for sheep equipment, fiber equipment, and fleeces. You can get many new ideas from the beautiful products on display from the many competitions.

With workshops and seminars galore, special activities for kids, cooking demonstrations, food booths, musical entertainment, this festival is going to be a hit with the whole family.

Location: Howard County Fairgrounds, 2210 Fairgrounds Rd, West Friendship, MD 21794-9604
Date: May 5 & 6, 2018
Time: Sat 8:30am – 6pm, Sun 8:30am – 5pm
Tel: 410- 531-3647
sheepandwool.org
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: visithowardcounty.com

The 43rd annual Colleton County Rice Festival is a celebration of the rice planting heritage that helped found Colleton County.

Enjoy a fun-filled week of family activities in the warm Carolina sun that includes a fireworks display, live musical entertainment, arts and crafts, 5k run, food concessions, corn-hole tournament, a BMX bike show with riders performing tricks and acrobatics, a crowd favorite DockDogs® a sport in which dogs compete in distance or height while jumping from a 40 foot dock into water, as well as cultural displays and performances depicting their local heritage.

They also claim to show off the worlds largest pot of rice along with a rice cooking contest.  Best of all Admission is FREE.

BMX Bike Shows – 3 shows daily

Rice Festival Parade  – Saturday, April 28 @11am

Rice Festival Dog Show– Saturday, April 28 @2pm

Palmetto Dock Dogs –April 27 & 28: Competition all day and finals on Saturday afternoon

Rice Run/Walk– April 28 @ 8am

Chad Gainey Sculpture –Chainsaw Art by Chad Gainey -April 27 & 28: Hampton Street

Biggest Pot of Rice -April 27 & 28

Corn Hole Tournament– Saturday, April 28 @4pm

Live Entertainment – throughout the 2 days

Fireworks – Saturday, April 28, 2017 8:45pm: Rice Festival finale

Location: Downtown Walterboro, Walterboro, SC 29488
Dates: Fri, Apr 27 – Sat, Apr 28, 2018
Times: Fri 10am -10pm, Sat 10-7pm
Tel: 843.549.1079
ricefestival.org
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: walterborosc.org

Richmond International Film Festival (RIFF) brings more than 150 international cutting edge films to RVA, plus industry panels, Q&As, live musical performances, red carpet awards, and entertainment mixers that usher the spirit of Hollywood into Virginia’s  Bowtie Cinemas, various music venues, and the historic Byrd Theater, a venue touted by USA Today as “one of the top 10 places to still see a movie in splendor in the United States.”

With more than 20 countries represented, the RIFF Official Selection consists of a diverse range of films (features and shorts), music videos, and screenplays across all genres.

RIFF is known for placing a heavy focus on music each year. The 2018 Festival will again include more than 50 music performances, industry networking events, panels, music business roundtable discussions, industry mixers, and more. On top of providing great entertainment from some of the music industry’s hottest talent, RIFF utilizes this area as a platform for filmmakers and musicians to forge new working relationships. Top awards will be given out across a variety of music categories during the annual red carpet awards.

Location: Various
Date: Mon, Apr 23, 2018 – Sun, Apr 29, 2018
Tel: 804-219-0675
rvafilmfestival.com
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: visitrichmondva.com

The sounds of the ancient Celtic peoples of Scotland and Ireland are as alive today as ever in America’s Oldest Celtic City at the 8th Annual St. Augustine Celtic Music & Heritage Festival.

The three-day festival takes place at Francis Field in downtown St. Augustine, featuring internationally acclaimed Celtic bands, a pre-festival Whiskey Tasting, Highland games, Celtic shopping and food, live music, two stages and a variety of entertainment. The music lineup includes Enter the Haggis, Emmet Cahill, House of Hamill, Dublin City Ramblers, Seven Nations, Rathkeltair, Emish, Albannach and Steel City Rovers.

Location: Francis Field, 25 W. Castillo Dr., St. Augustine, FL 32084
Dates:Fri, March 9 – Sun, March 11, 2018
Hours: Fri March 9,  7-9pm, Sat March 10, 10-10pm, Sun March 11, 10-7pm
Tel: 904-891-0326
celticstaugustine.com
For Regional Accommdations, Restaurants & Attractions: floridashistoriccoast.com

Brunswick Rockin’ Stewbilee takes place annually at Mary Ross Waterfront Park, recognizing Brunswick, Georgia as the birthplace of the original Brunswick Stew. As the oft-told tale goes, a slave cook named Jimmy Matthews created the concoction in 1828. Nearly two centuries later, the original meat – squirrel – is out and, today, chicken, is in.

Each year, cooking teams from near and far compete to see who has the best stew, in a cook-off where the culinary skills and secret recipes are challenged by amateur and professional chefs, vying for the coveted Peoples’ Choice and Judges’ Award.

In addition to stew tasting there will be loads of other fun family activities. The day long event begins with the 5k Road Race followed by the Pet Supplies Plus Pooch Parade, Live Entertainment, The Kid’s Junior Stewbilee Central Fun Zone, Classic and Antique Car Show, Arts & Crafts displays and of course, sampling of the Best Brunswick Stew in the nation.

Schedule:
9am – Motor Cycle Ride
10am – Live Music – Pier Pressure
10:15am – Pooch Parade
12:15pm – Live Music – 3 Day Weekend
11am – 2pm – Brunswick Rockin’ Stew Tasting

Location: Mary Ross Waterfront Park, Bay & Gloucester Street, Brunswick, GA 31520
Date: Sat, Jan 27th, 2018
Time: 9am – 2pm
Tel:  912-996-4593
stewbilee.com
For Regional Accommodations, Restaurants & Attractions: goldenisles.com