Festival Friday
Music, dancing, activities, and food to start the Festival weekend
Friday, May 31
6:00 PM–9:00 PM
Start your summer off right and visit the Ordway for the official beginning of the Flint Hills Family Festival Family Weekend! With music, dancing, activities, and food, there is something to please everyone in the family.
Special morning feature
NOOMA, an opera for babies
Friday night headliner
Davina & the Vagabonds
Free to attend
Outdoor performances
On Friday night, the park surrounding the Ordway comes to life with free, family-friendly acts! Bring your whole family for New Orleans-inspired jazz music and live DJing, awe-inspiring stilt artists, face-painting, and more!
Free to enjoy
Activities
Learn and create at the Festival! During the Flint Hills Family Festival weekend, Rice Park—just across from the Ordway—bustles with fun, free art-making activities, educational games, and more.
Wings for Wishes
Write your wish on a butterfly or dragonfly and decorate it with markers and doo-dads. Then put your Winged Wish on the blue sky wall and let your hope sail skywards.
Bell Museum
Hands-on nature-themed art activities and specimens for participants to observe.
Carpenter St. Croix Valley Nature Center
Experience Minnesota’s native wildlife as you meet some of CNC’s live animal ambassadors! Get up close and personal as you paint, draw, or color each live animal. Naturalists will share each animal's life history.
Children's Theatre Company
Make your own monster mask! Kids can use crayons, paper plates, and tactile multi-media materials to make a monster face.
Flint Hills Resources
Design and color a drawstring bag and show off your unique artistic skills and then use it to hold the other arts and crafts collected throughout the festival.
Hoang Anh Vietnamese Dance Group
Celebrating the Year of the Dragon, design a Vietnamese conical hat/nón lá, and craft a colorful dragon puppet.
India Association of Minnesota
Experience India’s art with Henna, Saree draping, Rangoli/Mandala, and lamp painting.
MathHappens Foundation
Come help us build the 3D Shape Museum by designing, assembling, and naming your own three-dimensional shape.
Mounds Park Academy
Create your own button and have a masterpiece to wear and take home!
Nritya Kalakshetra Academy of Performing Arts
Learn for yourself aspects of Indian culture with Henna for hands, practicing kolam arts, using Mudras to share a story, and rhythmic syllables through counting.
The Ordway
Create underwater creatures and seashells, color a Disney’s The Little Mermaid coloring sheet, and learn more about all the “under the sea” fun coming to the Ordway in December 2024.
Rainbow Party Arts
Fun and fast face painting by award-winning artists.
Trần Thị Minh Phước
Celebrating the Year of the Dragon, design a Vietnamese conical hat/nón lá, and craft a colorful dragon puppet.