(From the July 2006 issue)
Best Festival in Michigan: Saint Joseph Venetian Festival
The Saint Joseph Venetian Festival has been voted as the top festival in Michigan by the readers of Shore. Organizers of the original festival in 1979 probably had no idea it would grow into the mega-event it has become when they named it after the famed Venice lighted boat parades.
Jeff Hoover, a native of Saint Joseph—and now a producer of the WGN-TV Morning News in Chicago, has been attending the festival since it began. “In the early days before the festival went king-sized,” he said, “I was working for WSJM/WIRX radio. We would set up off the river where the main stage was built on a barge. It’s gotten bigger every year.”
It now draws attendees from all over the Southwestern Michigan area and beyond. The radio station still broadcasts the fireworks display, and the lighted boat parade is still one of the highlights, but the festival now has food (including exotic fare like alligator skewers and decadent desserts like gourmet cheesecakes), big name entertainment (including this year’s concerts by Styx, Little Big Town, and the Bangles), and even amusement park rides.
