Altoona's River Prairie P10 Festival set for Saturday

Thursday, June 14, 2018
Lauren French

Organizers behind Altoona's River Prairie P10 Festival on Saturday are hoping the experience sums up everything locals love about living in the Chippewa Valley.

Some of the ingredients: live music, beer, food trucks, art, dance performances and educational seminars focused on localized topics such as bees and harvesting maple syrup.

The variety of activities available at River Prairie development's festival is in itself a theme, Altoona city Administrator Mike Golat said. The new development was built around the "Power of 10" concept, which theorizes that public spaces are put to best use when they contain multiple elements that appeal to different ages and interests. He hopes that comes across on Saturday.

"When I think about place making, I think about, 'What are those things that people talk about at work? What T-shirts do they wear on the weekends?'" he said. "It's tapping into what people are passionate about."

The festival will run from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday at the development, where Golat expects about 1,000 people will congregate for the event. The celebration was originally scheduled for a date in May but was moved due to expected bad weather.

For a list of activities, vendors and a schedule of events, visit p10fest.com.

Those who love starting their day early have Steve Betchkal to thank for the festival's 6:30 a.m. start time. The Gaylord Nelson Audubon Society president will be leading a birding walk that embarks for a 45-minute excursion at 7 a.m. 

Following that walk, he'll lead an educational session called "For the Love of Birds," in which he'll share tidbits about bird colors, behavior, anatomy and facts he finds fascinating. 

Betchkal said he was eager to participate in the P10 Festival after organizers approached him.

"It's beautiful," he said of the development while expressing general distaste for urban sprawl. "For a development, they have done it with nature in mind. I want to say how grateful I am for that."

Betchkal added that a meadow that was home to grassland birds used to occupy the River Prairie development's location, but the builders incorporated elements of nature into its final product. He noted the builders left mature trees in place, traced a path along the river and built osprey platforms.

He emphasized that nature - and birds - are integral to life in the Chippewa Valley and beyond.

"It's never good for nature when you plow up a field," he said, "but when you get people next to nature, they have an experience. They grow to love the setting, and they find it's important and adds to the quality of their life."

Contact: 715-830-5828, lauren.french@ecpc.com, @LaurenKFrench on Twitter

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