The festival planning for 2012 is underway.

Mark your calendars and see you in less than a year!

Check out Shout! on Facebook or on their website to see where their next gig is at.

Also check out The Bridges. Like them on Facebook and check out their website.

Check out the report.

Also here is what FOX Toledo ran last night during their weather segment. Thanks for coming out WUPW!

Check out Tru Brew’s mySpace page and make sure to friend Tru Brew on Facebook!

Gynanta and Tru Brew both played to packed crowds.

If Saturday was this much fun, we look forward to so much more fun Sunday. More food, more drink, more fun, more music.

The festivities start promptly at 12 noon with opening ceremony, national anthems of the United States and Hungary, and roll on until 10pm.

Festival weekend is here!

Saturday’s events runs from 3-10pm and Sunday’s events run 12 noon until 10pm.

Download the festival guidebook for when the Waiter’s Race is, when the band perform on Saturday night, when the special performances from our friends from Montreal, Toronto, Detroit and Cleveland  are on Sunday, and when Tru Brew, Shout! and The Bridges take to the multiple stages on the festival grounds.

When residents of the East Toledo neighborhood of Birmingham gathered in the streets 37 years ago to defend their community and ward off an expansion that would divide the area, they had no idea what the outcome would be.

“They just wanted to celebrate the neighborhood because we were having some hard times,” said Betsy Ujvagi, whose family lived in Birmingham at the time.

Now more than 25,000 people show up every year to support the neighborhood, its culture and history during the annual Birmingham Ethnic Festival.

This year’s festival has been expanded to two days and kicks off Saturday afternoon at Calvin United Church of Christ with Hungarian folk crafts, folk dance lessons, and of course, authentic Hungarian dishes. There will be a 4:30 Mass at St. Stephen’s Church and 5 p.m. will bring celebrations with music and food in lots outside both churches.

“The whole mall that is open Sunday will be open Saturday,” said Ujvagi, secretary of the festival committee. In the past, the festival took place on Sunday with pre-festival activities going on Saturday night.

The festival games begin at 7 p.m. Saturday with the popular Waiter’s Race on Consaul near Caledonia Street. Teams compete in the relay race by carrying a tray with a full pitcher of beer and two full glasses for four blocks down Consaul and back. Contestants are scored on how much beer is left in their pitcher at the end of the race.

Birmingham was established in the 1890s when many Hungarian workers moved from Cleveland to work in steel, copper, and shipbuilding industries. Despite the dwindling Hungarian population in the neighborhood, Ujvagi said it’s important to keep the festival going.

“Since the beginning [Birmingham has] been a Hungarian enclave,” she said. “Everybody has a connection to Birmingham and wants to make sure it remains viable.”

Sunday festival highlights include arts and crafts, lots of food, cultural exhibits, and entertainment by Szikra Citera Egyuttes, Kis Szivek, Csardas Dance Company, the Kodaly Ensemble of Toronto, Echoes of Poland, the Rumblin’ Rhythm Cloggers, Gyanta Ensemble, the Ballet Folklorico Imagenes Mexicana, and Shout! Beatles Tribute Band.

The offspring of the Birmingham Neighborhood Coalition, the festival started as a celebration after a successful campaign against a plan to widen Consaul Street and build an overpass that would divide the neighborhood.

“The people of Birmingham decided to stand up and say we’re not going to take this,” Ujvagi said.”

Since then, the free festival has provided a blend of Hungarian, American, and local culture.

“It’s a chance to celebrate the history most people forget, but we make a point to stop and celebrate the culture,” Ujvagi. “A lot of people have moved away, but everybody comes home for the festival.”

Contact RoNeisha Mullen at rmullen@theblade.com or 419-724-6133.

We are in the final week before festival weekend – and we are still tinkering with a few things, like festival times and performances.

Added: Shout Beatles Tribute band, and The Bridges – both will close out the festival on Sunday nights. Shout is performing at St. Stephen’s lot while The Bridges will rock out at Calvin’s lot.

And it looks to be a picture perfect weekend at that – temps in the low 80s for daytime highs and evening lows in the upper 60s. A welcome change to the somewhat hot and sweltering festivals of the past 3 years and the rain-soaked weekend of 2007.

The festival guidebook was printed 2 weeks ago and have probably picked yourself up a copy at the corner store (The Andersons, Meijer, Kroger’s, etc.).

If you haven’t picked your book up or want an extra copy before the festival, here’s your chance to download and get a preview of festival weekend.

Download the book here. It is 36 megabytes in acrobat reader form.

Updated as of 17 August.