Rock the Rapids in late August will bring six days of concerts and some unusual street entertainment to downtown Grand Rapids.
Alice Cooper, one of Rock the Rapids’ 2011 headliners, is well-known for his on-stage antics with gigantic snakes.
This year’s Rock the Rapids will be missing Cooper, but snakes will be part of the entertainment – along with a wrestling match between a man and an 8-foot alligator, a sword swallower, a contortionist, an 80-foot Ferris wheel, a rock-climbing wall, ice-carving, face-painting and various rides.
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This year’s six-day Rock the Rapids festival, behind held in parking lots behind Van Andel Arena, kicks off Aug. 20 with country star Miranda Lambert and winds up with Big Boi of Outkast and B.o.B. on Aug. 25.
But the festival this year also plans to add other forms of entertainment, including a snake charmer and Chub, the 400-pound alligator.
Festival founder Denny Baxter told me organizers are “just trying to add to all that flavor, so to speak, and add to the vibrancy downtown” with an event that’s “just a little different.”
And in a prepared statement released today as part of the announcement of non-musical acts, Baxter, who last year relocated Rock the Rapids from Comstock Park’s Fifth Third Ballpark, said it’s a way to “open the streets to every kind of music, entertainment, food and fun imaginable.”
Indeed.
Tickets, which include $109 week-long passes as well as single-day and two-day options, are available online at rocktherapids.org or at the Rock the Rapids box office at Peppino’s in downtown Grand Rapids.
Here’s this year’s complete concert lineup
Aug. 20 – Miranda Lambert, Pistol Annies, Kari Lynch Band
Aug. 21 – UPROAR Festival with Shinedown, Godsmack, Staind, Papa Roach, Adelitas Way
Aug. 22 – Toby Keith, Kip Moore
Aug. 23 – Carnival of Madness with Evanescence, Chevelle, Halestorm, New Medicine
Aug. 24 – Boyz II Men, Bell Biv DeVoe
Aug. 25 – Big Boi of Outkast and B.o.B.
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