WaterFire returns to Providence this week
May 31st, 2010 at 11:10 pm ET
WaterFire returns to Providence, Rhode Island this Friday evening with the first lighting of the season, and we’re taking a quick overnight trip to the Creative Capital to enjoy this incomparable nighttime festival event that we first experienced during last year’s National Arts Marketing Project annual meeting.
If you’re new to WaterFire, here’s what happens: after night falls, volunteers in small boats light and tend wood fires in 100 braziers placed in the middle of the three rivers that flow through downtown Providence. Music plays, and thousands of people from Providence and the surrounding area converge on the waterfront to stroll, eat street food, and enjoy the sights, sounds, and scents of a large and memorable public event. At our last visit, we were fortunate enough to be guests in a gondola, which floated past three dozen of the braziers, upriver and then back down again, amid sparks and smoke and autumn drizzle. But even from shore, WaterFire is a thoroughly impressive sensory experience.
I particularly like WaterFire because it’s emphatically not a commercial event; it’s a spontaneous gathering of people from across the community to participate in a cultural happening (with free admission, courtesy of commercial and institutional sponsors, of the City of Providence and the state of Rhode Island, and of the dozens of volunteers who tend the fires, staff the boats, and advise and assist attendees on land).
Friday’s lighting starts at 8:16pm (sunset) and the fires will be burning until midnight. Bring a jacket; the evening will be breezy. If you’re within travel distance of Providence, consider making the trip; and if you enjoy what you see, please make a contribution to WaterFire.
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Rich Mintz blogs on online fundraising and social media, American history and culture, bicycling and urbanism, food, technology, and other topics. Professionally, he's an expert in fundraising, constituency development, and social media for nonprofits, cultural organizations, cause-related marketers, and corporations. He is based in New York, where he serves as Vice President, Strategy, for 
