Dec 5, 2019 | UpstateVibe365
You may have noticed that we haven’t had a functioning calendar for a while now (and thus haven’t sent out a newsletter, which is calendar-driven), but we’re back in business now! We were the victim of a DDoS attack, and if you don’t know what that is, be very grateful. It was not a fun thing to learn about as it was happening.
The calendar looks different now because it IS different—since the old calendar was the thing that allowed the attack in, we had to get rid of it altogether and find a new one, but we think you’ll like this one too. It’s a great visual representation of all kinds of events, but you can also choose to view it as a calendar, where the images will pop up as you mouse over the events, or a list or daily view if you prefer.
We are having to catch up with all of the great events happening and get them plugged in, but you can help by submitting your own events. Whether it’s a festival in your town or a fine arts event or an informational lecture or class, we want to let people know what’s going on in communities all over the Upstate.
We’ll be working hard here, too, to get as many events posted as possible so that we’ll have a full calendar of Upstate events to help you find things to do every day of the year, from Abbeville to Union and everywhere in between.
Nov 8, 2019 | Community Vibrancy, Press releases, Staying on Top, UpstateVibe365
Ten at the Top (TATT), an organization created to foster collaboration, partnerships and strategic planning across the Upstate, has announced the finalists for the 
2019 Hughes Investments Elevate Upstate Community Vibrancy Grants.
The five finalists were chosen from a total of 23 applications submitted for the two grants available in 2019. Hughes Investments is contributing $10,000 per year to the program with two recipients each year receiving $5,000 to support a new vibrancy initiative in the Upstate. The program began in 2013 in conjunction with a series of Community Vibrancy Workshops hosted by Ten at the Top. Since the inception of the grants program, Hughes Investments has contributed a total of $80,000 to community vibrancy initiatives across the Upstate.
Prior to the Ten at the Top Celebrating Successes luncheon on November 20th, the five finalists will each provide a brief overview of their initiative before the 2019 recipients are selected and announced at the luncheon. The finalists’ presentation will be held from 10:30–11:15 a.m., and there is no cost to attend, although registration is requested. The cost to attend the luncheon is $50, and prior registration is required. The luncheon will be held from 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. at the Greenville Convention Center, with Governor McMaster as the guest speaker. To register for either event, go to www.tenatthetop.org or contact Sharon Purvis at spurvis@tenatthetop.org.
Below are the five finalists (project name, applying organization, and brief summary):
Rhythm on the River – Powdersville Business Council
The Powdersville Business Council (an extension of the Greater Easley Chamber of Commerce) is looking to promote and sponsor Rhythm on the River, an event designed to bring families and businesses together in an unprecedented manner for the Powdersville community. This event will take place in the spring of 2020 at a local county park.
A Common Thread: Textiles Past and Present – Arts Center of Greenwood
In Greenwood, textile mills began to dominate the business scene in the late 1800s and throughout the 1900s. The mills and mill villages played a vital role in the life of this county. The Arts Center and The Museum will present exhibits and events in the fall of 2020 to honor our textile history and to educate and entertain visitors and residents. The themed event, A Common Thread: Textiles Past and Present will be a review of the institution of textile mills, village life, and more current trends in the commercial and artistic realm of textiles.
Piedmont Blues and Roots Music Festival – Main Street Laurens
The Piedmont Blues and Roots Music Festival will be a celebration of the rich past Laurens has with blues, jazz, and even rock music genres. The event will be held in Downtown Laurens and will focus on the traditional piedmont blues music, mill hill blues, and other types of music that have played such an important role in music history. There will even be an opportunity to highlight local record companies and local bands who produced their own records back in the day!
Trains on Main – Main Street Clinton
The young and young at heart all love to stop and watch the trains as they roll through the City of Clinton, parallel to Main Street. Trains have long been a part of Clinton, so what better way to showcase this history than with Trains on Main. Model trains provided by the Copper family, the participation of downtown businesses, and Main Street Clinton volunteers, can all make this possible. The model trains will be on display and operating along the top perimeter walls of local businesses, in hopes of attracting local Clintonians and visitors from afar to step in and take a gander.
Peg Leg Bates Dance Showcase – City of Fountain Inn
The Peg Leg Bates Dance Showcase will be an exciting opportunity for local dance groups to participate in a free and fun event at the Fountain Inn Activities Center. This Showcase is open to all dance groups, however, the purpose of this project is to create a premiere dance event for groups who may not be able to afford or have access to traditional dance events/competitions. The goal is to have at least ten local dance acts participate throughout the day of the event. The idea is not necessarily to compete, but to highlight extraordinary local talent in the area of dance while creating an opportunity to celebrate an amazing native of Fountain Inn and his accomplishments.
The selection committee for the Elevate Upstate Grants Program includes Phil Hughes (President, Hughes Investments), Ingo Angermeier (Retired, Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System), and Terence Roberts (Mayor, City of Anderson).
Oct 16, 2019 | Staying on Top, UpstateVibe365
There are several festivals going on this weekend around the Upstate—and they are so varied that there’s bound to be one for everyone! From beer to BBQ, cycling to high-end automobiles, pick your festival and go enjoy this fall weekend.
Walhalla Oktoberfest: From Friday to Sunday, Walhalla merchants and other local vendors will have crafts and food for sale for festival goers on Main Street, and on Sertoma Field, there will be music and rides as well as vendors.
EURO Auto Festival: If you’re into cars, head over to the Preserve at Verdae, where rare and familiar cars will be on display—and while you’re there, you can sample European food and culture and bring home some automotive-related souvenirs.
Gran Fondo Greenville Family Fun Festival: This weekend is the Gran Fondo Hincapie in Greenville, with both local and celebrity cyclists—but if you’re not riding, you can still join the fun with free food, drinks, music, and festivities at George Hincapie’s Hotel Domestique in Travelers Rest. Bring the kids with their bikes for children’s bike 
races!
Hogs & Hens BBQ Festival: The Hogs & Hens festival has been bringing visitors to Abbeville since 2013—with craft vendors, a kids zone, all-day music line-up, a petting zoo, and, of course, some amazing BBQ.
Pacolet Indian Summer Festival: A car show, performances by local school choruses and groups, children’s rides, along with plenty of craft and food vendors.
The NESS Fest: If funnel cake and festival food are not your thing, check out the health and lifestyle festival at Fluor Field, featuring workout classes, cooking demonstrations, activities for kids, and much more—all to promote wellNESS, goodNESS, fitNESS and wholeNESS.
Middle Eastern Food Festival: The St. Rafka Maronite Church in Greer is going to be serving up delicious Middle Eastern 
dishes all day to benefit the church. If you’ve got a hankering for some falafel, baba ghanoush, or tabbouleh—or if you’ve never tasted those things and want to try them, this is the festival for you!
Hub City Brew Fest: A $35 ticket gets you samples of 75 beers and ciders (please drink responsibly!) as well as live music and activities. There will also be food trucks and vendors on site. The event is to raise money for a multi-use bike park in downtown Spartanburg—the Bike Park at the Rail Yard.
And one more, for good measure. This is happening next weekend, not this one, but when there is such a thing as a Bigfoot Festival, you need to know about it! For hardcore believers and sasquatch skeptics alike, this Bigfoot-themed festival in Westminster is not to be missed.
Oct 9, 2019 | Elevate Upstate, Staying on Top, UpstateVibe365
Quick—who was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics? If you came up with Greenville native and Furman graduate Charles Townes (extra points if you also 
came up with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov, who received the award with him), then you’re going to love the Charles Townes Art and Technology Experience this Friday night in Travelers Rest. And if you didn’t come up with his name, you should definitely go see (and experience) the interactive art installation that uses light and sound to inspire curiosity and experimentation in viewers of all ages.
Created by multimedia artists Jeff Sumerel and Goda Rupeikaitė-Sumerel, the project was funded in part by a Hughes Investments Elevate Upstate grant, awarded last year at Ten at the Top’s Celebrate Successes event.
The husband-and-wife team were not, in fact, husband and wife when they began collaborating, but Goda’s work as a documentary director and producer as well as post-production specialist meshed with Jeff’s work as a documentary filmmaker—and they have become collaborators in life as well as in work.
According to a press release about this installation, “Jeff Sumerel and Goda Rupeikaitė-Sumerel create notable, one-of-a-kind stage and film works using traditional and non-traditional methods of production and collaboration to create entertaining, thought-provoking and memorable experiences for diverse audiences.”
Sumeral hopes that the curiosity sparked by this event will turn it into an annual event, bringing others in to create something new each year.
Asked what drew him to Townes, he says he was looking for a well-known Greenville native to celebrate, much like the town of Cheraw, SC has done with native son Dizzie Gillespie. He landed on Townes because “his spirit of curiosity, exploration, and risk-taking resonated not only with those working in science and technology but also those in the arts,” Sumeral says.
Photo credit: Alfred Eisenstaedt
So what exactly is an art and technology experience, and what can visitors expect? It’s not a laser show, nor a grand presentation or in-depth narrative about Townes, Sumeral explains. Rather, he says, it’s “an outdoor abstract multimedia installation that runs every 5 minutes,” with “a minimalistic film projection and audio soundtrack that incorporates quotes from Townes.”
Just bring your curiosity to the football field at Gateway Park in Travelers Rest on Friday, October 11th, between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m., to experience it for yourself! And if you find yourself wanting to know more about Townes, you can read about him here.
by Sharon Purvis
Oct 2, 2019 | Staying on Top, UpstateVibe365
Click for a larger map of the trails.
Maintained by the city of Walhalla, Stumphouse Park is 440 acres of natural beauty and a recreational paradise. Within the park are picnic tables and a covered event pavilion that is available to rent for outdoor gatherings—but for those who really want to explore, there is much, much more.
The Stumphouse Tunnel was originally supposed to be a railroad tunnel connecting Charleston and Knoxville, but with the interruption of the Civil War, it was never finished. Today, it’s a family-friendly ¼ mile walk (flashlights recommended)—and its consistently cool temperature inside makes it a welcome treat in this unseasonably warm weather. It also creates ideal conditions for making blue cheese; Clemson University used it for that purpose in the 1940s and 1950s, until air conditioned cheese ripening rooms were built on campus in 1956.
Issaqueena Falls can be viewed from a platform accessible by a well-maintained trail that’s about a 5-minute walk from the parking area, and there’s an easy hike to the top of the falls.
At the top of the Issaqueena Falls parking lot is a trailhead for the Blueridge Railroad Trail, a moderate-to-strenuous hike that follows an incomplete railroad bed with two additional abandoned railroad tunnels—the Middle Tunnel, which has an opening that you can go inside, and the Saddleback Tunnel, which over the years has filled with water. The hike is 2.5 miles one way, so it’s a nice mid-length hike.
The Stumphouse Mountain Bike Park is ten miles of state-of-the-art bike trail, linking the town of Walhalla to the Palmetto Trail. The trails are multipurpose, so hikers may use the trail as well, although not horses. Click here for a short promotional video about the trail, and, if you’re so inclined, this one is a 15-minute video of YouTube user Newbie MTB riding the trail.
Park Entrance Fees: $5 per vehicle, $25 Annual Pass (Oconee County Residents), $35 Annual Pass (Non-Oconee County Residents), FREE for City of Walhalla Residents. Annual Passes can be purchased at Walhalla City Hall.
Sep 25, 2019 | Elevate Upstate, Staying on Top, Uncategorized, UpstateVibe365
In 2018, Union’s Piedmont Physic Garden applied for an Elevate Upstate grant to help pay for a unique kind of festival: an art and music festival, but one that focuses on conservation and environmental awareness. For the first time in the five years that Hughes Investments had been awarding the grants, in addition to the winning projects, the PCC was awarded a matching grant of $3000 for the festival—and that was the impetus for raising the remaining funds ($1500 each from Union City Council and Union County Council) and getting the community behind the project.
Coie Switzer, director of the Piedmont Physic Garden, says, “We want to thank Ten at the Top and Hughes Investments for giving The Environmental Art and Music Festival its start. The $3,000 matching grant gave us the boost we needed to start this positive community vibrancy initiative in Union.”
In addition to the Piedmont Physic Garden, six other groups have come alongside to partner in this endeavor: USC-Union, Union County Tourism, Union County Arts Council, Union County Historical Society, Union Carnegie Library, and Union County Chamber of Commerce. The fruits of their labor will be realized this weekend, with the first-ever Environmental Art and Music Festival.
The festival celebrates Union County’s natural beauty and culture. It will take place in the heart of historic downtown Union, SC. The Vendor Village will take place on the campus of USC-Union’s Patrons Park, including food trucks and a mix of craftsmen, artists, and others whose works are based on sustaining natural products and resources. Click here to read more about it, from Linda Wilburn Weber of the PCC.
The festival will also include art exhibits at USC-Union’s Main Building, the Union County Museum, the Piedmont Physic Garden, the Union County Arts Council gallery and the Union Carnegie Library in addition to a Main Street Arts Stroll.
FREE outdoor music concerts will be held on Friday and Saturday nights at USC-Union’s Patron’s Park.
Schedule of Events
THURSDAY, SEPT. 26th Union County Arts Council 2019 Annual Art Exhibition Award Ceremony & Opening Reception @USC-Union Main Building 6 PM
FRIDAY, SEPT. 27th (All-DAY W/ EVENING CONCERT)
Vendor Village @ USC-Union’s Patrons Park 10 AM – 5 PM
UCAC 2019 Annual Art Exhibition @ USC-Union’s Main Building 10 AM – 5 PM
Sculpture Exhibit @ Piedmont Physic Garden 10 AM – 5 PM
Children and Teen Art Exhibit @ Union Carnegie Library 10 AM – 5 PM
Art Exhibit featuring Eola Dent at Union County Museum 10 AM – 5 PM
Art Exhibit featuring Thomas A. Tucker at UCAC Gallery 10 AM – 5 PM
Main Street Art Stroll 10 AM – 5 PM
Free Family-Friendly Bluegrass Concert featuring Tri County Express @ USC-Union’s Patrons Park 5 PM – 7 PM
Free Rock Concert featuring Dazed Renegade @USC-Union’s Patrons Park 7 PM – 9 PM
SATURDAY, SEPT. 28th (ALL-DAY W/ EVENING CONCERT)
Vendor Village @ USC-Union’s Patrons Park 10 AM – 5 PM
UCAC 2019 Annual Art Exhibition @ USC-Union’s Main Building 10 AM – 5 PM
Sculpture Exhibit @ Piedmont Physic Garden 10 AM – 5 PM
Children and Teen Art Exhibit @ Union Carnegie Library 10 AM – 5 PM
Art Exhibit featuring Eola Dent at Union County Museum 10 AM – 5 PM
Art Exhibit featuring Thomas A. Tucker at UCAC Gallery 10 AM – 5 PM
Main Street Art Stroll 10 AM – 5 PM
Live Music featuring Jordan Lawson 12 PM – 2 PM
Free concert featuring Nashville musician and Grammy nominated songwriter, Robert Arthur and Union band, QUEST @ USC-Union’s Patrons Park 7 PM – 9 PM
