The Heart of Virginia Festival has traditionally ended with fireworks, splashes of color and lights over the Farmville Municipal Airport in Cumberland County. This year just before the fireworks display there will be another show in the sky that will thrill the crowd: a skydiving show. Opening with a plane trailing white smoke will come skydivers creating formations as they drift earthwards. The big moment comes when a large American flag unfurls. After landing the skydivers will hand out small American flags to the kids and will pose for pictures. This is a new act for the Heart of Virginia Festival and one that you should not miss.

The company doing the skydiving show is Aerial Adventures Demos, Inc.  Aerial Adventures has put on shows for many major events all over the country, including NASCAR, Atlanta Braves Baseball, and Hampden-Sydney football games. You can see more info about their team at www.aerialadventuresdemos.com. They also own a skydiving school, open to the public, only 30 minutes from Farmville, in Lunenburg County, called Tandem Skydiving School. For more information visit www.nolimitsskydiving.com.

The Heart of Virginia Festival is an annual family-oriented celebration of the arts, crafts, culture, and music in the heart of Virginia and is held every first Saturday in May in Farmville. This year’s Presenting Sponsor is Centra Health. If planning to attend, please remember to leave pets, bikes and skateboards at home and be on the lookout for–and use–the recycle bins throughout the festival and airport area.

REDUCE! RE-USE! CREATE! This will be the LCVA’S (Longwood Center for the Visual Arts) theme for the 2010 Heart of Virginia Festival.

This year at the Heart of Virginia Festival, kids can stop by the LCVA booth to make wearable art out of recyclables.  They will turn colorful magazine scraps into beads for necklaces, mixing in bottle caps, aluminum can tabs, and assorted wires, papers, and trinkets from the LCVA’s stash of goodies.  There will also be an opportunity to make and take colorful corsages and bright bouquets  made from paper towel rolls and tissue paper scraps.  When you see youngsters wearing fanciful hats and crowns hand-crafted and decorated from newspapers, you will know they have stopped by one of the hot spots at the festival. Each person who visits the booth will also receive a coupon redeemable for a free box of crayons at the LCVA on May 1.

The Heart of Virginia Festival is an annual family-oriented celebration of the arts, crafts, culture, and music in the heart of Virginia and is held every first Saturday in May in Farmville. This year’s Presenting Sponsor is Centra Health.  If planning to attend, please remember to leave pets, skateboards, and bikes at home and do your part by looking for and using the recycle bins scattered throughout the festival area.

If you hear children at the May 1 Heart of Virginia Festival asking for spaghetti, it isn’t because they are hungry. They’re talking about Teddy Spaghetti, long-time crowd pleaser at the festival. He will most likely be found in a crowd of children, entertaining them with juggling, balloon tricks and a medley of merry mayhem. This  favorite of both younger and older generations may be seen almost  anywhere on High Street, but he will spend most of his time near  the Children’s Stages in the morning and in the vicinity of the Longwood University Colonnade in the afternoon, clowning around, of course.

Teddy will be joined at the festival by another unusual entertainer. If you think you have seen everything that can be done with a hula hoop, you’ve never seen Spiral. No stranger to performing from street festivals to stages and arenas, Spiral’s acrobatic dancing with her hoops will set your head spinning. She will be featured on the lawn in front of the Colonnade in the morning, at the Children’s Stage in the afternoon, and then on the Airport Stage on Saturday night.

The Heart of Virginia Festival is an annual family-oriented celebration of the arts, crafts, culture, and music in the heart of Virginia and is held every first Saturday in May in Farmville.  This year’s Presenting Sponsor is Centra Southside Community Hospital. If planning to attend, please remember to leave pets, skateboards, and bikes at home, and be on the lookout for recycle bins throughout the festival.