Batteaux to float, minus rest of fest

For the second year in a row, downtown Lynchburg will not float its own festivities Saturday when the James River Batteau Festival launches from the city.

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For about 20 years, Lynchburg hosted a carnival-like “Festival by the James” to coincide with the launch of the batteaux for their eight-day journey from Lynchburg to Richmond. Last year, batteau festival participants and many spectators were surprised that Lynchburg didn’t have its own festival.

This year, other than a couple of vendors selling batteau-related items, the downtown community has no specific plan to market to the hundreds of visitors drawn by the batteaux. On Wednesday, some downtown business owners didn’t know the festival would start this weekend.

Buddy High, this year’s James River Batteau Festival chairman, said it is disappointing that Lynchburg won’t have an event.

“The 15 years that I’ve been involved with it, Lynch’s Landing and Lynchburg always had a big thing going on,” he said. “Last year, they decided they wouldn’t do anything.”

“That was sorely missed last year,” said Andrew Steger, manager of the Depot Grille downtown. “… Last year, it seemed like it was just not that big a deal.”

Angela Hamilton, executive director of the downtown revitalization agency Lynch’s Landing, said the group did not plan to host a carnival with the batteau festival after the Jamestown 400th anniversary celebration in 2007. This year, hosting an event is not feasible because of construction at Riverfront Festival Park, she said. Lynch’s Landing officials are considering hosting it in future years.

Kim Niedbalski, owner of The Faery Godmother on Main Street, said she knows several people who were disappointed by last year’s lack of activity to coincide with the batteau festival.

She hopes Saturday’s batteau launch brings shoppers downtown, where business has been slow, she said. However, she isn’t making specific attempts to draw tourists into her store because she didn’t know the festival was this weekend until Wednesday, when contacted by The News & Advance.

Shay Borel, owner of Shay’s Unique Gifts on Commerce Street, said she hadn’t given any thought to the batteau festival this year. Last year, she opened her store two hours early, at 8 a.m., and didn’t get any traffic from the launch of the batteaux. This year she might open at 9 a.m., she said.

The White Hart Café, the Lynchburg Museum System and Scarlett’s Main Street Antiques and Apoth Coin have no batteau events planned, either.

Hardwick’s Gifts on Main Street will have batteau-themed artwork from local artist Dennis Johnson, said co-owner Ripley Owen. The store usually sees increased traffic when the batteau festival begins. “Anything that will bring people downtown will help us,” he said.

Two artists at the Lynchburg Community Market will sell sculptures of tobacco leaves and crafts made with wood from tobacco barns. Market manager Janet Rose-Campbell said the artists were inspired last year by the batteau festival, which is in its 24th year and celebrates the historic tobacco route from Lynchburg to Richmond.

Rose-Campbell said the market will have more than its usual number of crafters working Saturday, but it doesn’t have a specific event aimed at visitors to the batteau launch.

Rose-Campbell, who used to manage events for Lynch’s Landing, said Festival by the James was held as long ago as the late 1980s.

The town of Scottsville, the halfway point of the journey on the James, has held a festival to welcome the batteau riders for about 15 years. Nancy Gill, one of the event’s organizers, said the Scottsville Batteau Festival drew more than 3,000 people to the town of 550 in 2008. She said the restaurants in town brought in a lot of money the night of the festival last year.

She thinks every place where the James River Batteau Festival stops should have a local event to celebrate history. The batteau route is “a part of the very early history of Scottsville, as it is of Lynchburg,” Gill said. “… Historically, it’s a very important festival.”

Beckie Nix, tourism director for the Lynchburg Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau, said events such as the James River Batteau Festival bring a lot of followers. “It’s an opportunity to provide them with the information they need to visit other sites in the area ... to help them stay a little longer and spend some money with us.”

She would not say whether Lynchburg organizations should host a local festival coinciding with the batteau launch.

High said that he would like to see Lynchburg revive its celebration of the batteau festival.

“It’s beneficial to them, as well as to us. It’s more beneficial to Lynchburg because we’re going down the river regardless,” he said. … The more people you can pull in, the more money they can spend, the more money that can be generated for the community.”