Weekend warriors unite

Weekend warriors usually refers to those who set out on the road for various traveling occupations, whether it be professional wrestlers, artists, musicians, circus folk - whatever. They do their thing on the road. That's where the phrase derives.
But it could also refer to Florentines looking for something to do on their day-off. Hitting the road to Columbia, Greenville, Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head, Savannah, Asheville.
I'll admit, bl'reader, I'm one of them.
And it's expensive.
Well, Florence now has something to offer Florence residents on the weekend in Downtown.
Remember the last time you could say that, honestly?
I wasn't even born yet.
It's true, though. At least this weekend, the grungy decor of downtown will not be able to dissuade happenings from...happening.
It starts this Friday at 5:30 with the beginning of Florence After Five, the monthly downtown concert series. There will be local food and drink vendors and a musical entertainment by everyone's favorite professorial band of musicians, The Woody's.
Actually, guitarist John Baltzell assured me that they're not all professors, but I needed an adjective. So, it's my blog and they're all professors.
While The Woody's are taking the stage, Florence native and designer Treifer Johnson will open his gallery Friday from 4 to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. for the first show of Metamorphosis Art Collective, an art collective founded by Johnson along with several local artists.
Participating artists include Colleen Appleton Critcher, Harry McFadden, Stephanie McQueen, Hannah Brown, Eunice Jackson and Jennifer Maples.
On Saturday, the Art Trail Gallery will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. with over 500 works by local amateur and professional photographers. After the FLT performance of "Peter Pan", Top Hat Special-Teas, 234 W. Evans St., will be offering a post-Peter Pan dessert event with 10% off desserts with a Playbill from the performance.
On Sunday, the Concerts in the Park Series will have Flowtown Band from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at Timrod Park Amphitheatre.
One of the most interesting aspects of this weekend is not the beginning of the downtown concert series, nor the downtown art opening (although those are both fantastic). The interesting thing is the special after-performance desserts at Top Hat. It's exactly the kind of cross-promotion Art Trail Gallery volunteer Jane Madden was talking to me about. Creating an inter-connected downtown. Basically, she told me recently, the key to a thriving downtown is corporation between downtown entities so people don't just have one reason for going downtown, but many. Incorporating private businesses and organizations into Downtown Corporation brainstorms like Florence After Five is essential to creating a bustling downtown.
Once you have these webs of downtown events, pamphlets with downtown events can be created with possible deals or coupons to encourage residents to spend time downtown, she said.
Now that life has began to re-emerge in downtown that seems to be the next logical step.

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