By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The defining feature of the Black Swamp Arts Festival, which will be held this year Friday, Sept. 8, Saturday, Sept. 9, and Sunday, Sept. 10, in downtown Bowling Green, is its multitude of attractions. Click for more details.
There are the art shows. The juried show stretches down Main Street. The Wood County Show is tucked into the corner of Clough and South Main, and BGSU students display their work just across Clough.
There’s music on three stages, ranging from international acts on the Main Stage to high school a cappella groups on the Youth Arts stage.
There is the Youth Arts area to stimulate the imagination of the community’s budding artists.
There’s food strategically located throughout the festival, as well as what local eateries have to offer.
And there is the opportunity to help provide the sweat equity that makes the BSAF possible. About 800 volunteers are the glue that binds all this together, and for some doing their part is an essential element of participating and enjoying the festival.
“We don’t have a festival without volunteers, everyone from the board to the ticket sellers,” said Emily Keegan, who co-chairs the volunteer committee with Anne McLaughlin.
The childhood friends have led volunteer recruiting efforts for the past three years. McLaughlin works remotely from California and will arrive before the festival kicks off to oversee the volunteer operation.
“It is really fun to do with my friend Anne,” Keegan said. “It’s always a flurry activity before the festival and then when all these volunteers show up it’s heartwarming.”
Keegan has volunteered at the festival for over a decade. For 10 years as a board member of the Humane Society, she oversaw the group’s Pisanello’s pizza concession in Lot 2. And when “when things got harried,” Wynn Perry, previous volunteer cheer, would tap her friends group, including Keegan, to fill slots.
The volunteers include BG residents, BGSU students, and even a few like McLaughlin who come from afar to help out.
The festival is using the university’s new BGSUserves platform to sign up students. Volunteering helps bring students downtown, some for the first time. Keegan hears students gush about how “cute” the downtown is or remark that they’d been on campus for two years but didn’t know about the festival.
Having experienced downtown, she said, “they come back down.”
While recruitment has been underway for weeks, people generally do not sign up until two weeks before the festival. There are plenty of opportunities to help.
That includes 39 openings for “floaters,” a position that Keegan and McLaughlin created. It allows people to show up and get dispatched to wherever they’re needed.
Keegan also is “plugging” the more than 50 spots for ID checks and beer ticket sales. The booth is set up in Lot 2. “You’re always close to the music,” she said. “So, you get to the enjoy the festival while you’re volunteering.”
That’s true of most of the volunteering slots.
The merchandise sales and information booth located at the Four Corners also needs volunteers, as well as a couple people to oversee the operation.
But just about every job has openings.
Anyone interested can email Keegan at: bsafvolunteers@gmail.com or click.
