Arts, Beats & Eats is Still Bringing the Beats and Helping Local Musicians

This year, Arts, Beats & Eats won't be taking over the streets of Royal Oak like it normally does. But, they are still keeping the festival going, and the way that they are doing it might be even cooler than the traditional event. (Well, at least giving the current circumstances.) This year, you can catch some "live" music and support local artists through a series of virtual and drive-in events. 

The virtual part of the festival kicked off on Thursday night. It will host music online every night through September 3rd with different virtual musical stages. The goal of this part of the festival is to bring music to you while you're in the comfort of your own home and help local musicians. The festival will be taking donations during all of the virtual events, and those funds will be distributed to local musicians. They plan to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars during the events and have a goal of reaching $1Million, because Oakland County is matching all donations up to $500,000. You can check out the full virtual lineup of events here. Some highlights that stuck out to us are Scott Lee on Tuesday at 7 p.m., Gerard Smith on Tuesday at 8 p.m., Emma Guzman on Sunday at 3 p.m., and we hear Ben Sharkey is cooking up something extra special for his set on Sunday at 6 p.m.

The drive-in portion of the festival will take place Friday, September 4th thru Labor Day. This will also feature local musicians and will take place in the parking lot at 6th and Main Street in Royal Oak, where the national acts usually take the stage during the festival. The lot will be limited to 50 cars with 2 people in each car. Admission per car is $30, which will be divided between the bands that are performing. For that admission, you will get to see a set with two acts, while maintaining social distancing. Some highlights from this portion of the event include Jackson & The Poolsharks kicking things off on Friday at 5 p.m., Kaleido, Nina & The Buffalo Riders, Polish Muslims, Corktown Popes, Stone Clover, Thornetta Davis, and more. You can check out the full lineup and the details of the drive-in here. 

For the Arts & the Eats parts of the festival, things will be different too. The art show will be by appointment only and will take place on September 5th and 6th. You can get all of the information on that by clicking here. The eats will be transformed to "Eats on the Streets", in which the festival teamed up with T-Mobile to get your favorite food trucks out on the streets of Royal Oak, Clawson, Berkley, Huntington Woods, Clarkston, Rochester, Lake Orion and Ferndale. This part of the festival is only being publicized by those individual communities. So check the social media for the city closest to you to find out what trucks will be on their streets. 

It's no surprise that things are looking different for this festival this year, but hopefully this new approach will still add some fun into your week. For all of the details on this year's Arts, Beats & Eats, visit ArtsBeatsEats.com.

~C