First Night® Cadillac 2008
CELEBRATION BEGINS MONDAY, DECEMBER 31st AT THE WEXFORD COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM
WITH THE COMMUNITY PHOTO “CLICK AT 1:30 PM”.
You can be a part of the annual First Night Cadillac 2008 Community Photo, taken in front at the Wexford County Historical Museum on Beech Street at 1:30 PM by Cadillac photographer John Nelson perched in the Aerial Fire Truck. Free copies of the Community Photo will be available at Cadillac Printing Company on Janurary 4th by presenting your First Night Button. This is the ninth year that Cadillac Printing Company has offered this service, free of charge to our community!
The Annual Downtown event will be a "Puzzle Search". Entry forms and rules will be available at the Wexford County Historical Museum AFTER the community photo at 1:30. Enjoy downtown music and events while searching out puzzle pieces. Play as a family or play by yourself, either way it is sure to be fun!
Additional Afternoon downtown activities include: music, free bus service, tattooing, museum tours, Klassical Keyboard, Singing Bowls, a labyrinth, and other events to be announced. In addition to the annual performance by the Dancenter students at 3:00pm, afternoon events at the school include face painting, dog sleds, kids games, x-box, a petting zoo, local artists display of works
Afternoon activities at the Junior High/High School include: Dynamite the Clown with his Inflatable Slide and Bouncing Castle, Creative Art, Dog Sledding, Face Painting, Children's Games, Petting Zoo with a miniature horse, board games, and many other events.
Evening events at the Junior High/High School Complex begin at 6pm and end by 10pm. The focus of the evening activities is music, however there will be additional events taking place through the evening including X-Box Games, Child Identification Kits, Magician Keith Stickley, storyteller Terry Wooten, Caricatures by Luke Hamilton, Board Games, Local Art Display, food Concessions.
The High School Performance gym will house teem activities from 5:30pm until 10:30pm. Sponsored by the YMCA Teen Center, activities will include teen focused inflatables, games, and bands. X-Box for teens will take place in the High School life-skills room.
You also will not want to miss the annual presentation of the "Messiah" held at the First Congregational Church at 7:00pm. We have a great selection of featured musical artists for this year's celebration of the arts.
Some of the performers that you WILL NOT WANT TO MISS include:
- The Chelsea House Orchestra is a group of over 30 young musicians
performing Traditional Celtic Music and World Groove Sounds on violins,
violas, cellos, basses, guitars, flutes, oboes, bodhrans, djembes, and harp.
- Duck Soup plays contemporary Bluegrass music throughout the State of
Michigan. Members have roots in Irish, Country, and Folk music. Their
performances are punctuated with lots of good humor and stories. A great
variety of music, instrument changes, and lots of fun.
- Detour is a new bluegrass band hailing from Northern Michigan.
Combining original contemporary bluegrass sounds and great traditional
favorites with tightly focused harmonies, precision instrumentals, and
creative melodies, Detour takes you down a unique bluegrass road. Featuring
the stellar banjo playing of 2001 National Banjo Champion Mike Sumner, the
high lonesome vocals and low lonesome string bass of Zak Bunce, the soulful
guitar of Scott Zylstra, and the hard driving mandolin and superb song
writing of Jeff Rose, Detour has quickly become a standout new bluegrass
band --- "a bluegrass joyride".
- Bo White & the Bluezers covers the spectrum of popular music: Rock,
Classic Rock, Oldies, and of course Rhythm and Blues.
- Cadillac's own, Rachael Davis, will be performing from 6pm-8pm. In
the span of her solo career Rachael has shared the stage with the likes of
Boston based singer/songwriter Vance Gilbert, folk divas Claudia Schmidt and
Sally Rogers, Prairie Home Companion regulars Robin and Linda Williams, Greg
Brown, Taj Mahal, Robert Earl Keen, Fred Eaglesmith, Josh Ritter, jazz
legends Marcus Belgrave and Winston Walls -- amongst others. With her
natural jazz stylings and soulful vocals, Davis' third album and first
national release, "Antebellum Queens," due to be released in 2008, will be
sure to grab the attention of many.
- Other bands playing at this celebration include Just Jammin, Marty Hopkins & the Time Machine, the CHS Percussion Band, Alan Exoo, Samantha Robbins, Crossroads Harmony Choir, Bill Barnett and Pat Pettengill, Keepin' it Country, and other bands including teen bands!
Please view our Schedule of Events for more information.
Mission Statement
First Night® is a New Years Community Celebration through the arts. First Night® seeks to foster the public’s appreciation of visual and performing arts through an innovative, diverse and high quality New Year’s Eve program which provides a shared cultural experience, accessible and affordable to all. Cultivating a sense of community, bringing together the family, revitalizing the downtown, developing an audience for the arts, decreasing alcohol consumption on New Year’s Eve through a public celebration are the objectives of First Night®.
