Paxton’s First Friday’s concert series fully announced

PAXTON, Ill. (WCIA) – The First Friday’s concert series is fully underway in Paxton. May 3rd was the first performance featuring the Everingham-Pittman Band, a classic rock band featuring songs from the 70’s and 80’s.

The concert series takes place on the first Friday of every month, hence its namesake. The following is the lineup for the rest of the summer:

• June 7th – Love Sign, a musical rock band.
• July 5th – The Travelling Radio Show, a classic country band.
• August 2nd – Holly Smith, a Paxton Native with a variety of genre’s.

Donna Pepper, from Paxton Main Street, is organizing the series. “We’re inviting everyone to bring a lawn chair or a blanket,” She said on this week’s Meet the Mayor. “They can put it out on the front lawn of our Veterans Square.”

It’s one of many events taking place throughout the summer, including Swine N’ Dine BBQ Contest, 4th of July Celebration at Pells Park, and Draggin’ Main. It’s all to make the village a better place to visit, according to the mayor, Bill Ingold:

“For the last seven or eight years, we’ve tried to figure out a way to bring more people to Paxton to come and visit Paxton, to shop in Paxton and maybe live in Paxton and bring a business to Paxton. Whatever it is, we just want to be out there. So we’ve done quite a number of things.”

The reception for the series has been overwhelmingly positive. A big reason has been the focused improvements of the downtown area, which is Pepper pointed out in the interview:

“If you have a strong and healthy downtown that just, you know, bleeds out into the entire community. And Paxton is very lucky to have a gorgeous downtown after the great grant that we got in the streetscape and all of that. And now the businesses are are just embracing that and fixing up the fronts of the buildings a lot with the help of the mayor and city council.”

For more information on events going on downtown, check out Paxton Main Street’s website: https://www.paxtonmainstreet.com/

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