The Historic Charleston Foundation’s (HCF) annual spring house and garden tours, which attracts thousands of tourists to the city, has a new name and a refreshed schedule to lure more local residents.
The new name, the Charleston Festival, replaces the old Festival of House & Gardens. It’s a month-long calendar of tours, workshops, lectures, art exhibits and music events that begins March 14.
The evolving festival, HCF’s largest money-maker, began in 1947 shortly before it was formally incorporated later that year.
Last year, the foundation updated its strategic plan, which led to the need to “rebrand and reboot” the festival, said HCF president and CEO Winslow Hastie.
The festival’s staff was then challenged to think about what it has become and what it can become to ensure it’s tied to the HCF mission, said Roualeyn de Haas, the foundation’s director of marketing and communications.
The name change “reflects a festival about Charleston for Charleston,” de Haas said.
The nonprofit HCF is not in the business of event production, but it offers the festival because of the educational value to highlight the preservation and culture of Charleston, he explained.
This is the first year that festival events aren’t packed on the Charleston peninsula, Hastie said. “We are trying to lighten our tourism footprint,” he said. Events are scheduled around the city, even at the old naval base, he added.
Capacity at some events has been lowered. Ticket prices – which range from $35 to $275 – have been raised slightly, he said.
Last year, the foundation sold more than 10,000 tickets and 73% of them went to people from outside South Carolina, de Haas said.
This year’s festival will have an equal number of events as last year’s, however, 10% more audience capacity will be gained by holding concerts and lectures at the larger venues in the Dock Street, Riviera and American theaters, Hastie said. This is the first year the festival will use those historic theaters.
Festival highlights
Living Local is a new events series aimed at new residents who might not have yet explored downtown Charleston, Hastie said. The series will give newcomers, who don’t fully know the history and depth of the city’s culture, a sample of different educational and fun activities, he said.
The Living Local events includes a new festival music series featuring the Plantation Singers, a local Gullah and spiritual a cappella group at Dock Street Theatre and Circular Congregational Church. The series will also present Southern blues rocker Aida Victoria and Charlton Singleton’s eight-piece ensemble. Both events will be staged at the Riviera.
Charleston By Design replaces the antique show that kicked off the festival for about 17 years. During the pandemic, however, the foundation decided to sideline the labor-intensive show, Hastie said.
Elements of it are part of a new lecture series, Charleston By Design, to bring in designers to talk about how they are inspired by historic places and buildings. “The idea is to try to make preservation more relevant to a broader audience,” especially to area newcomers who don’t live on the Charleston peninsula, he said. The event will be staged at Second Presbyterian Church.
Learning from the Lowcountry is a collection of tours and lectures at different venues to present a variety of Lowcountry topics.
This schedule offers more diverse events that would not have been on the menu 77 years ago, Hastie said. The line up lists lecture topics such as the emancipation of enslaved people, the Denmark Vesey slave conspiracy and the history of LGBTQ life in Charleston.
“We really are trying to market more to locals as much as to visitors,” Hastie said. “If you are a newcomer this is a great way to [see] Charleston.”
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