Kayakers make their final formation on the Tennessee River during the 2012 HATCH Festival. The 11-day downtown event is being renamed for this year.
Sarah Ervin, left, and Jennifer Holder look at vintage and handmade items for sale at the 2012 HATCH Festival in downtown Chattanooga. The new name for the event this year is spark: a right brain celebration.The name has changed, but the idea behind a multiday celebration of the arts is essentially the same, according to organizers of “spark, a right brain celebration.”
Scheduled for April 11-21, spark is the new name for the HATCH Festival that debuted last year. The event had to change its name after receiving a formal request from attorneys representing a similarly named event in Bozeman, Mont.
Carla Pritchard of Chattanooga Presents, which is helping produce the event this year, said the idea is to showcase “the multidisciplinary arts that we have in this community and also to encourage presenters to break out of the mold and try something different.”
This year’s event will celebrate literature, technology, history, visual arts, performing arts, music, culinary arts and more through dozens of events and exhibits over 11 days.
Chattanooga Presents has put out a call for participants and hopes to program the event over the next several weeks. Pritchard said she hopes artists, gallery owners, restaurateurs and store and venue owners will collaborate on new and unusual ideas.