Arts & Entertainment Society Events kick off the fall with Full Moon on Fifth and a few others

MERIDIAN, Miss. (WTOK) -Full Moon on Fifth brings a lot of people from around the area to downtown Meridian to enjoy a night of music, fellowship, and fun.

The Arts and Community Events Society, also known as ACES, will be hosting this event on Fifth Street in downtown Meridian, as people are invited to come out and hear live music performed by Joe Austin and the Tallahatchies, an art gallery pop-up, food and beer vendors, and more.

Julia Norman, Committee Chair for Full Moon on Fifth, talks more about how this event has grown over the years.

“We just started out as a very small event. We didn’t know how many people would show up, and every time we have it, we feel like we have more and more people, and we think it’s because it’s really accessible to everyone. You can come and have dinner downtown and then go to the event. You can bring your lawn chair and set it up for the night. It’s really kind of what you want to make it. The kids’ activities make it really comfortable for people to bring their children. And so, we’ve really been embraced by the community, and so, we just keep listening to you all and trying to bring you music and art and activities that you love.”

Full Moon on Fifth isn’t the only event that ACES has in the works, as Julia Norman, Committee chair for Full Moon on Fifth, talks more about what’s to come from ACES.

“In a couple of weeks, we will have something called FEASTable, and that we’ve had for a few years now. It’s an international food tasting event. You buy a ticket, you can go to acesmeridian.org , and you purchase that $20 ticket, or you can save $5 if you go ahead and do that now, and you get to sample all these different foods, and they’re from restaurants in our area. So, this exposure to foods that you didn’t know were there. It’s a pretty good deal too, because you get to sample a whole lot of food for just 20 bucks, so that will be coming up in a couple of weeks. Then in a couple more weeks, we’ll have another full moon event, and that will be on Friday, and we’ll follow on that Saturday with our inaugural Plein Air Festival. That’s an outdoor painting event, and again, you can go to acesmeridian.org and sign up for that or check out our Facebook page, but that’s for students, amateur, and professional artists, and you’ll paint outside that day of that event, and there will be a judging portion of it. You’ll turn in whatever you’ve created that day, and there are over $2000 worth of prizes. So, we’re really excited about that. People who aren’t artists, who just want to come and observe people painting downtown. That will be an opportunity for them to do that. And then if you want to purchase the art or view it, there will be a wet paint party sale that night so that you can go and see all the art that was created in our downtown,” Norman says.

ACES is completely volunteer-based, but everyone who is a part of the organization started because of their love for the Queen City.

“I mean, we kind of just started out very small. We were helping with a couple of other events, and Full Moon was kind of our first big signature event that we do. We are completely volunteer-based, and I think every one of our volunteers have found us, people come to our events, and just like it, and say I want to get involved and so we have a great group of volunteers, and they all kind of have their strengths. We are comprised of a lot of artists, and it’s just people that love Meridian and that just think it’s a fun place to hang out, and we try to create events that highlight that and also expose people to the arts,” Julia Norman says.

To learn more about ACES or how to purchase tickets, you can visit www.acesmeridian.org/.

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