Preparations for This Year’s Cherry Blossom Festival Are Underway

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Central City Park is getting ready for this year’s Cherry Blossom Festival. Rides are being built, food vendors are setting up, and everyone is getting excited for opening day on Friday.

“We are building Central City Park from the ground up,” Linda Maddox, the executive director of Central City park for this year’s Cherry Blossom Festival, said.

And turning it into a fun festival for all ages. But this doesn’t happen over night. Vendors started arriving in Macon on Monday to set up their booths and rides.

“We’ll spend one day cleaning the canopy, cleaning the inside. Second day, like today, we set up the grill and put our floor down and do last minute cleaning up,” James Styers who runs the Roasted Corn booth said. “And after that, its basically getting ready for the crowd.”

It takes Maddox a year to make it all happen. She has to get permits, vendors, sponsors…basically everything needed to run the festival.

“It’s an enormous amount of work but its worth every minute,” she said.

There are several rides this year, both new and from festivals past. Making its grand debut this year is Yoppi. It is a brand new kid friendly roller coaster that is all ready to go for its first set of riders.

And what’s a festival without food?

“We’ve got lots of new vendors. We got fish, we got Mexican, we got Greek, we got Asian, we’ve got American, we got carnival food. We’ve got everything,” Maddox said.

Plus free concerts every night. Maddox says there will be a showstopping headliner returning to Macon on Sunday, March 17th.

“We haven’t had Liquid Pleasure in a long time and they are terrific,” she said. “I think that are going to be a huge treat and you don’t want to miss them.”

But until then, these vendors are putting on the finishing touches as we countdown the days till the Cherry Blossom Festival kicks off.

The opening ceremony for this year’s festival is Friday at Central City Park at noon.

You can buy an all day, any day pass for $20 or purchase individual tickets. Tickets are $5 Monday through Friday before 6 p.m. Tickets are $10 after 6 p.m. during the week and on the weekends. You can buy tickets at the Cherry Blossom Festival Souvenior shop at 652 Mulberry Street or call (478) 741-3883 for more information.