Destination Realty News: November

Happy Election Day to all of our friends and loved ones! We hope that wherever your political sentiments might lie, you’re taking time today to get out and rock the vote.

October marked an exciting time for us here at Destination, as we participated in the inaugural Pumpkin Palooza on the 500 block of Penn Street, brought to us by the good people at the Reading Downtown Improvement District, on October 22nd. The festival included live music and entertainment, a pumpkin pie eating contest, scarecrow making, pumpkin carving, mummy wrapping, a pumpkin seed spitting contest, horse-drawn wagon rides, and of course, the annual DID scarecrow contest!

The contest encourages entrants to create humorous, entertaining, mischievous, or lovable scarecrows as a way to bring together local businesses, organizations, families, churches, and schools in a delightful autumn event downtown. We’re very proud to announce the Destination Realty scarecrow, in the form of Despicable Me’s Gru, along with a host of Minions, took second place in the contest!

The Penn Street Market included special seasonal goods and produce from the vendors to accompany the Pumpkin Palooza’s events, and if you were in attendance, you might have noticed Destination Realty sponsoring the craft zone for families with two of our lovely volunteers. Donations for the craft zone were generously provided by Weaver Orchards, Home Depot, Opportunity House, and the Reading Eagle.

With hundreds of local residents turning out to enjoy the music and carriage rides, the Pumpkin Palooza was definitely an amazing event, and we’re so honored to have been part of it! We’ll be looking forward to seeing you at the next one!

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Pretzel City Productions brings the party to June with Berks Country Fest

If you’re not already familiar with Reading Eagle’s new venture, Pretzel City Productions, they’re the folks that brought us the amazing Fire + Ice Festival in January of this year. This month, inspired by the Berks Jazz Fest, one of the city’s most popular annual events for the past 25 years, Pretzel City Productions brings a new type of music festival to the city: the Berks Country Fest.

Pretzel City Productions was the brainchild of executive director of circulation and promotions for the Reading Eagle Company and president of WEEU 830 AM, Dave Kline. Kline believes that the City of Reading could experience its own renaissance, fueled by events like this month’s Country Fest, January’s Fire + Ice Festival, and the Reading 120, a 120-mile cycling event sanctioned by the Union Cycliste Internationale, the Switzerland-based governing body of sports cycling, which takes place on September 21st.

As Kline stated in this speech earlier this year, “We have a lot of great hotels here, a lot of great places to put on shows and tons of venues. […] We’re going to be showing people all around the world how awesome Reading and Berks County is, and we’re going to bring them here as tourists.”

The Berks Country Fest runs from June 15th-21st, providing you the perfect opportunity for Father’s Day plans, and celebrates the diverse musical genres that embody the melting pot of America, including country, acoustic rock, Americana, folk, bluegrass, jazz, world and orchestral music. Major headliners include Ruthie Foster, Mary Fahl, Bill Staines, and Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, as well as a variety of local bands and musicians. There are loads of great events going on for the duration, and it all starts with a kickoff on June 15th at 3PM, at local favorite restaurant, The Peanut Bar.

In addition to these special performances taking place throughout the festival, there will be two free concerts featured as well. The Common Chords Concert for Unity & Peace will be taking place on Saturday, June 20th, along Reading’s Restaurant Row; and the Reading Pops Orchestra with special guest Dave Cullen will perform Music of America, their annual Father’s Day concert, at Cacoosing Meadows Park in Sinking Spring (bring your own lawn chair!).

The full schedule of events, as well as tickets to purchase, are available from the official Berks Country Fest website: http://www.berkscountryfest.com. We hope to see you there!