It’s here! Check out all the details on this year’s PDX Bridge Festival events, tours, and speakers.
2011 FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
Reply
BLOCK PARTY!
WHEN: Friday, July 29th, 6pm -12am
WHERE: theSlate, 2001 NW 19th Ave., Portland
What better way to kick off this year’s PDX Bridge Festival than a FREE BLOCK PARTY with an awesome view of the Fremont Bridge?! The event—hosted by Scion at TheSlate—features live music on two stages, $3 pints from Lagunitas Brewing Company, food and craft vendors, and live art. Open to all ages!
Music abounds, as the indoor stage features Willamette Week’s Best New Band of 2011, And And And, joined by local favorites, Wax Fingers, Housefire, Boy Eats Drum Machine and Solovox. In addition, the Block Party will host an outside performance area featuring local multi-cultural acts and Portland’s favorite buskers, including Joy Now!, Nuestro, Worth + Bondy, All the Apparatus, Acoustic Minds, Andrew Gorny, Farafina Foly, the Amazin’ Jerks, and belly dancers! All are invited to join the PDX Bridge Festival as it launches the 2011 Festival with music, art, food and beer — some of Portland’s favorite pleasures.
Event Schedule:
theSlate Stage (indoor)
- 6pm – Boy Eats Drum Machine
- 7:30pm – Housefire
- 8:30pm – Wax Fingers
- 9:30pm – And And And (Willamette Week’s Best New Band of 2011!)
- 10:30pm – Solovox
Busker’s Corner Stage (Outdoor)
- 6pm – Andrew Gorny (classical guitar)
- 6:30pm – Amazin Jerks
- 7pm - Joy Now! (MarchFourth Marching Band Kid’s Summer Camp Parade)
- 7:30pm – Shalyn (belly dancing)
- 8pm - Nuestro (Latin American groove)
- 8:30pm – Farafina Foly (African drums)
- 9pm – Acoustic Minds
- 10pm – Worth + Bondy, featuring Melody Kay
- 11pm – All the Apparatus
Presented by:
JOY NOW!
PDX Bridge Festival is happy to partner with JOY NOW Summer Performance Arts Workshop, a week-long day camp for youth age 12-18.
In its first year, JOY NOW hopes to empower, excite and engage youth through music and performance arts-centered programs that value diversity, positive collaboration, self-awareness, and social change. The inaugural summer camp with members of March Fourth Marching Band begins July 25th. Youth will spend the week working with members of the band and other talented friends to create their very own performance. Come witness brave stiltwalkers, young percussionists, singers, horn players and circus acrobats as they take the songs and dances they learn to the streets of Portland, classic M4 style.
PARADE, Last Thursday on Alberta, July 28th
Join us at 6:30, starting from Binks – 2715 NE Alberta Street.
We’ll march down Alberta Street to the corner of 20th for a small performance in front of the Rose City Vaudeville bus. This event will be the very first parade and performance of the new Joy Now Arts Project.
FINAL PERFORMANCE & CLOSING RECEPTION, Laurelhurst Whole Foods Market, July 29th
Join us at 3 pm on Friday at the Laurelhurst Whole Foods, 2825 E. Burnside St.
This event will be the very final parade and performance of the new Joy Now Arts Project. Come cheer on the newly minted performers as they put on a fabulous show.
JOY NOW is still accepting students in the following focus areas: saxophone*, trombone*, percussion, voice & circus arts. To register, visit www.joynowproject.org. A limited amount of scholarships are still available!
* For saxophone and trombone students, we are encouraging at least one year of experience playing the instrument.
SPONSORS AND PARTNERS
Thank you to sponsors and partners of PDX Bridge Festival’s 2011 celebrations!
Brunch on the Bridge presented by: 
World’s Largest Box of Doughnuts fabricated by:
BLOCK Party presented by:
Closing Party at the Crystal
presented by:
Tours & Speakers presented by:
Media Sponsors:
PDX Bridge Festival produced in partnership with:
CLOSING PARTY at THE CRYSTAL!
WHEN: Sunday, August 7, 2011 – Doors at 5pm, Music until 1am
WHERE: Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W. Burnside, Downtown Portland
Join us as we close-out the 2011 Festival at the Crystal!
TICKETS: $10 – GET TICKETS NOW!
Performing on two stages for seven hours, thirteen local bands will provide an all ages musical finale to this year’s PDX Bridge Festival.
In the main Ballroom, Dropa ignites the evening with magnetic and melodic electro acoustic tracks, followed by quality rock from Water & Bodies, a true Portland circus experience with the Wanderlust Circus, folk-pop all stars The Dimes, and foot stompin’ rock with Tango Alpha Tango. Closing out the night is the electro-hip hop of Serious Business and a late night dance party with local electronic heavyweight, Copy.
Just downstairs in Lola’s Room features the CD release party for local indie-Americana all stars, The Hague. Formerly, And I Was Like What?, The Hague’s new album, “The Stark House EP,” shows music that is truly that of the Pacific Northwest, with sounds of rock, indie, pop and country influences. Also downstairs will be Seattle favorites, The Horde and The Harem, along with Symmetry/Symmetry, Violet Isle, Sara Jackson-Holman, and Mnemonic Sounds.
Event Schedule:
Main Stage
6pm – dropa
7pm – Water & Bodies
8pm – Wanderlust Circus
9pm – The Dimes
10pm – Tango Alpha Tango
11pm – Serious Business
12am – Copy
Lola’s Stage
6:30pm – Sara Jackson-Holman
7:30pm – Mnemonic Sounds
8:30pm – Violet Isle
9:30pm – The Horde & The Harem
10:30pm – Symmetry/Symmetry
11:30pm – The Hague (CD Release Party!)
Presented in partnership with:
SUPPORT A BRIDGE BOOK FOR KIDS!
The Bridge Lady tells her once-upon-a-time story, and then guides young readers to 19 bridges across and near the lower Willamette and Columbia rivers. Included in the path of discovery are four bridges for walkers and bikers: the Eastbank Esplanade floating bridge, the Portland Aerial Tram, the new Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Bridge, and the Vancouver Land Bridge. Visit arch, suspension, and beam/truss bridges. Bridges that swing, lift vertically, and bascule. Bridges with all kinds of talent and personality.
BIG & AWESOME BRIDGES includes:
- Bridge in a Box™ truss bridge building activity with patterns and step-by-step how-to-build and how-to-test instructions
- A chapter for each bridge includes photographs, general history, technical details, sources of the bridge’s name, info about the engineers and builders, and neighborhood landmarks
- Site visits with The Bridge Lady (where to go and what to see), with simple maps
- Mini-profiles of Portland and Vancouver and the Willamette and Columbia rivers
- Interviews with a bridge operator, an urban bird expert, an ironworker, and an engineer
- Math building activity using bridges to determine mean, median, mode, and range
- Extensive glossary with simplified engineering terms
- Timeline, bibliography, and index
BIG & AWESOME BRIDGES is a project of PDX Bridge Festival, Inc., a 501(c)3 nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to raising public awareness of all bridges. The goal of this volunteer collaboration is to print enough books to give free class sets to third grade classrooms in the Portland Public School District and to classrooms in the Vancouver Public School District. Any profits from sales after the free distribution will go to PDX Bridge Festival for its educational programming.
Please consider a tax-deductible contribution to this project:
Or send checks, made out to PDX Bridge Festival with the memo BIG & AWESOME BRIDGES to PDX Bridge Festival c/o Kohel Haver, Attorney at Law, 621 SW Morrison St, Suite 1420, Portland OR 97205.
By contributing to BIG & AWESOME BRIDGES, you will be acknowledged in the book and honored at a very special publication party.
Questions? Email sharon@bridgestories.com, or call 503.330.0900.
Funded in part by donations from the Geotechnical Group of the American Society of Civil Engineers Oregon Section, THA Architecture, Portland Ironworkers Local #29, KPFF Engineering, and T.Y. Lin International. Individual donors (so far) include: Ted Kaye. We’re waiting and ready to add the names of other partners to this list!
BIG & AWESOME BRIDGES of Portland and Vancouver: A Book for Young Readers
By Sharon Wood Wortman, M.Ed. and Ed Wortman, PE, MS, MCP; with third grade Portland Public School teacher Judy Cappleman, MS.
Art by Sabin/ACCESS Art Project’s third grade students, Chris Lamp instructor.
Edited by Edith Fuller, MLS, retired district librarian Portland Public Schools.
REVIEW YOUR FAVORITE BRIDGE!
PDX Bridge Festival and Google Places have teamed up to offer user reviews of Portland’s bridges! These reviews benefit the festival through support of our nonprofit mission to “raise awareness and foster appreciation of the Willamette River Bridges.”
Here’s some information about Google Places to help get you started: Ratings and Recommendations on Google
Simply click on each of the pictures below to review your favorite (or least favorite) Willamette River Bridge! Review all ten!
ST. JOHNS BRIDGE
FREMONT BRIDGE
BROADWAY BRIDGE
STEEL BRIDGE
BURNSIDE BRIDGE
MORRISON BRIDGE
HAWTHORNE BRIDGE
MARQUAM BRIDGE
ROSS ISLAND BRIDGE
SELLWOOD BRIDGE
Brought to you by:
BRUNCH ON THE BRIDGE
WHERE: Hawthorne Bridge
WHEN: Saturday, August 6, 10am-2pm
Kick off your shoes and spread out your blankets, Portland’s favorite open-air “extreme food” picnic experience is back again. On August 6, 2011, Portlanders will once again experience the Hawthorne Bridge as a grassy park, complete with trees, picnic tables, and croquet! See more details below.
Online ticketing has closed.
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE GATE!
General Admission $25
Kids: Age 6 -11 $10
5 & Under Free!
Already got your tickets? Scroll down to the bottom of the page for important event information!
This time around, Brunch on the Bridge will be bigger, greener, and better than ever: The event will double in size to 28,000 square feet as we cover all six spans of the Hawthorne Bridge in fresh, locally grown grass.
Our focus is on food this year, and we have designed a number of one-of-a-kind experiences to tantalize your taste buds and delight your other four senses, too.
Here’s the skinny:
The magic is on the bridge this year, as Voodoo Doughnut will unveil “The World’s Largest Box of Doughnuts” in an attempt at the Guinness World Record! Attendees will not only see the current record broken, but are encouraged to bring the doughnuts home with them. (Please take some home!)
Attendees are welcome to sample from an array of brunch-y foods (which is included in the cost of entry), purchase food from the vendor food court, or bring their own picnic baskets to the event. A PDX Bridge Festival Games Master will also return with a croquet course, cornhole, and other family fun. Look for the already-surreal ambiance to be enhanced even further through the presence of musicians and colorful performers.
PDX Bridge Festival 2011 has chosen B-Shares, a local bike delivery program serving hungry populations in need, as a charity beneficiary of the event. Working with B-shares and event sponsors, the Festival looks to triple last year’s food drive donations of 700 lbs of food to local shelters. Donation barrels will be on-hand at local Whole Foods stores, as well as at the event itself. PDX Bridge Festival encourages attendees to bring canned goods to the gate!
Art is an integral part of the Bridge Festival, and local artists will once again create one-of-a-kind picnic tables, which will be auctioned off and on display at local Whole Foods locations. Winning bidders receive entry for four and a VIP brunch basket for four – and will also take the tables home with them.
Tickets to the Brunch on the Bridge are $25 for regular entry and include a sample of Portland’s finest products from leading natural food companies in the region.
Online ticketing has closed.
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE GATE!
General Admission $25
Kids: Age 6 -11 $10
5 & Under Free!
IMPORTANT EVENT INFORMATION:
Food Donations:
PLEASE BRING NON-PERISHABLE FOOD ITEMS to be collected at the entrance, which will be delivered to local food banks through B-Line, a bike delivery program serving hungry populations in need.
CASH ONLY!
For the ease of our mobile vendors, our box office, merchandise booth and Mimosa garden, please bring cash. There will be lots of free food sampling, as well as a massive quantity of free doughnuts, but if you wish to purchase anything on-site we ask that you stop by the ATM before arriving at the event. As you can imagine, we are on a bridge, so the technology required to run credit card machines and ATMs is limited. We appreciate your cooperation.
Getting Here & Parking:
The event entrance will be located on the west side of the Hawthorne Bridge (Map It!). Vehicle parking is available downtown and at the east end of the bridge. Bike parking will be located near the gate to the event. Sidewalks will remain open to bicycles and pedestrians, so please be courteous to regular commuters. TriMet bus service will be re-routed for the period of the event. View the TriMet service map here to locate your best bus or MAX train route. The event entrance is in the Free Fare Rail Zone.
Venue:
For your safety and the safety of other participants, please wear flat shoes. You may also go barefoot! Food will be available for sampling, and food vendors will be on hand should you wish to purchase at participating food carts. Of course, you are always welcome to bring your own picnic baskets. Please NO ALCOHOL! Mimosas will be available for $5 in our Mimosa Garden!
Presented by:
In Partnership with:
Made possible through the support of:
KICKSTARTER: Support the Portland Eastbank Esplanade Project
The Portland Eastbank Esplanade Project (PEEP) will temporarily transform the 1.5-mile long Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade into an open-air exhibition space for public art, music, and performance, showcasing new and existing work by regional creatives. This is part of the PDX Bridge Festival’s “Left Bank” Initiative to celebrate 10 years of this connective public space with site-specific installations utilizing new technologies, music, public interaction, spoken word, and live artistic demonstrations. The call for submissions to PEEP will be open to individual sculptural artists, projection mappers, lighting designers, improv groups, sound artists, dancers, poets, knitting collectives, or any artist(s) working in a similarly public medium. Our plan is to offer small stipends for accepted artists to help fund their creative endeavors.
HAWTHORNE BRIDGE CELEBRATES 100 YEARS OF SERVICE
Video PDX Bridge Festival as we prepare for the 100 year old birthday celebration of the Hawthorne Bridge. Reported by Michael Lloyd of The Oregonian.
Click the following link to view the video: