Festival Season is now in full swing and we are ready to get out and enjoy the beautiful Colorado sunshine! This Saturday and Sunday, June 18th & 19th, is the Denver Cherry Blossom Festival at Sakura Square located in LoDo on Lawrence and 20th. Since 1972, this festival has been a celebration of Japanese American heritage and culture with live entertainment (including a rousing drum demonstration by Denver Taiko), arts & crafts, food, and drinks along with plenty of educational exhibits and demonstrations. This year there will be 40 booths selling food, jewelry, clothing and kimonos, pottery and so much more! The Denver Buddhist Temple will be exhibiting ikebana (flower arrangement) and bonsai, giving informative lectures on Buddhism, and serving food including delicious teriyaki chicken. We highly recommend you chill out with some Blueberry CBD Chill Pills from the Growing Kitchen and make it down to Sakura Square to experience and learn about the Japanese culture at the Cherry Blossom Festival! Admission is free, for more details check out cherryblossomdenver.org.
For lovers of the Arts, this weekend is also the Denver Arts Festival at Stapleton. Formerly known as the Downtown Denver Arts Festival, this celebration of Colorado Visual Artists has moved to the Stapleton Conservatory Green Plaza in Northfield to accommodate the growing popularity of the festival. On Saturday and Sunday, June 18th & 19th, the exhibition will feature over 100 of Colorado’s best local artists as well as a select group of national artists. We highly recommend you pack your PAX with a little Grandpa Larry from LiveGreen to get you in that nice contemplative and creative high and make it out to Stapleton for the 18th Annual Denver Arts Festival! For more detail check out denverartsfestival.com.
If you enjoy exploring the world of Comic Books, then there is no better place to be this weekend than at the Denver Comic Con Convention located at the Colorado Convention Center on 14th street between Champa and Welton (just look for the giant blue bear). From Friday through Sunday, June 17th-19th, this event will be an incredible gathering of comic book fans that want to celebrate their favorite comic book stories and characters with like-minded fans. All of your favorite characters come to life with many attendees wearing intricate and ornate costumes of their favorite characters as well as special guests and speakers including actors, comic book artists and more! With hundreds of booths, you can purchase memorabilia, costumes, fan-art, old comics, autographs, and just about anything your nerdy little heart desires. We HIGHLY recommend you throw on a Mary’s Medicinals Sativa Patch throw on your favorite Comic Book Character T-shirt and make it down to the Denver Comic Con! For more details or to purchase tickets, check out popcultureclassroom.org/denvercomiccon.
This weekend is also the Denver Pridefest at Civic Center Park, celebrating and supporting the 40th anniversary of the GLBT Community Center of Colorado. On Saturday and Sunday, June 18th-19th, the celebration will have over 250 booths of food, arts & crafts, and educational resources as well as live music and entertainment! Denver Pridefest is now the 3rd largest Pride Festival and 7th largest Pride Parade in the country drawing in over 350,000 attendees each year to create a safe space to celebrate the LGBT and allied community heritage and culture. With plenty of fun events to check out within Pridefest, including Dogs in Drag and the Big Gay 5k, there is so much to see and do. We highly recommend you pack a bowl of some Space Queen from DANK and make it down to the fabulous Denver Pridefest! For more details and a full list of events, check out www.glbtcolorado.org/pridefest.
As always, enjoy the Mile HIGH City!