8.13.2025 Take Me to the River Press Conference

Thanks everybody for coming out on a beautiful Wednesday morning. Welcome to the Tom Norton City Pier. My name is Patrick Norton. I'm the executive director of the Narrow Center for the Arts and we are super excited to present Take Me to the River part two. This is the second year we've done this and uh we're calling it the feel-good event of the century. Might be an exaggeration,

but that's that was our marketing plan at the Narrows. We believe in that. It's a free event. We have three worldclass bands here. Ryan Mount Blue Ryan Mount Blue Band is the headliner. Uh 2025 Blues Grammy Award winner Ruthie Foster and our good friend Eddie 9V. Eddie 9V is a guitar player who's made a lot of noise the last year. He just got signed to Dan Arback from the Black Keys uh

record label. So it's going to be a fun event. We've got Canned Heat serving beverages. We've got Primo serving beverages. We've got a variety of food trucks. And we know we're kind of in somewhat of a construction zone here on Route 79, but we've got some great parking options and some great transportation options I just want to talk to every about real quick. First of all, you can get here from the MBTA

station. Anybody along that MBTA line, it's a quick 5minute walk from here.

We've also have uh the city trolley which will be transporting people from the MBTA lot from the Narrows lot and also from the lot on Ferry Street. And then we're also encouraging voters to pull up to the pier as well. There's some uh docking that you can pull up. I think there's about 15 dock uh locations right up against the pier. And then there's also some a lot of places in the

water that people can pull up their boat and check out the music. Uh you know these things this is it's a free event but it costs money obviously quite a bit of money to put this event on. And we get a lot of support from the city and I want to introduce uh my good friend Mayor Paul Kugan.

Thank you, Pat. Uh, again, this Take Me to the River Festival, we were down here last year. It was very special, and I believe it's going to be bigger and better than ever. We encourage people to come out, enjoy the pier, enjoy the scenery, listen to some great music, grab a bite to eat, and come down and participate in one of the real key events going on in the city of For this

summer. Uh, the more people we get down here, the more people that are exposed to all the positive things in our city, the better it is for everybody. And I want to thank Pat and the team at the Narrows for putting this together. It's always a top shelf event and we really, really want people to show up that day.

So, we'll see you down on the pier for the Take Me to the River Festival.

Thanks Pat.

Thanks, Paul. And just one more thing, you know, this event is a really great way to showcase the Forville Waterfront.

Two things happen here. It's a great event for the community. A lot of local people can come down to the event and experience high quality, you know, culture and music for free. But also Whip the Narrows is known for bringing a lot of people from outside of Fall River into this event. And last year we figured about 70% of the people who attended the event came from outside the city of Fall River. All six New England

states were represented. So it's like a it's an economic event too where it brings people from all over to the city of Fall River. And as Paul said, Forever has been in the news lately where a lot of people see for as a great place to live. And these kind of events help in, you know, enrich the community and make for a better place to live. As I said earlier, these events aren't free. They

cost a lot of money to run. And Mechanics Bank has been our sp our presenting sponsor the last two years.

And I'd like to bring Deb Grimes from Mechanics Bank to say a few words.

Thank you very much, Pat. Yes, my name is Deborah Grimes and I'm with Mechanics Cooperative Bank. We are super excited to be the presenting sponsor for the second year in a row. Take Us to the River is a wonderful community event and we're so proud to partner with not only the city of Fall River but with Narrows themselves. Music brings people together and that's exactly the purpose that

we're trying to accomplish here. Fall River is a great place to be and we want to shine and definitely highlight all of these wonderful things that we have in place and most importantly this gorgeous waterfront. So hopefully you're all able to join us. We're excited to see you all come up and uh and join us. We'll have a tent there and we'd like to talk with you and and learn a little bit about you

as well. So again, thank you so much Pat and thank you Mayor Kugan for coordinating this wonderful event. Thank you.

Well, thanks everybody. Thanks for coming out. Hey Jared, you want to get the little sign? We're going to do a little We got out a little sign. We want to do a quick photo op. Anybody got any questions?

I guess start off. Tell me a bit about last year as well, how this event got started, how however ended up becoming what it is now.

We have done a we've probably done a hundred uh outdoor concerts over the last 24 years, the Narrows, um in different parts of the city, and we really landed upon this place last year.

We loved it. We think it's the nicest place in the city. You know, I'm a little bit biased. I I got to say uh I'm happy the the pier is actually named after my dad, so there's like a sentimental piece to it too as well. But last year we had close to a thousand people and we're expecting that as long as we get a good weather day, we're expecting that many people again.

How do you coordinate with the uh with the musicians as well?

Well, that's what we do at the Narrows.

Uh well, you know, we I think we're going to keep it right now for the next few years, but there is another park down there, Bsentennial Park. You know, I don't know if me and Paul will be around that long. We'll need a we'll need a we'll need a few extra sponsors to make all that happen, but I could see this event growing and adding Bsentennial Park and it's a short walk

from Bsentennial Park um to the for the Tom Norton City Pier and making that work. So, we'll see. I think this whole area is is about to transform the next year. So, there's going to be more restaurants, more places to eat and drink. You know, maybe there'll be after parties and late night raves before we're all said and done with this thing, Paul. I don't know. All right. Anyway,

that's too much information, I guess.