Downtown After 5
Downtown After 5 is a community entertainment program presented by the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce. The free festival presents performances by local bands and musicians in downtown Sarasota, allowing musical artists to showcase their skills and supporting the local downtown and its businesses. The Chamber of Commerce hosts Downtown After 4 once a month on a Friday evening.
Downtown After 5 takes place on Lemon Avenue in the city’s downtown, between Main Street and First Street. The popular festival is open to the entire community, and is completely free. Downtown After 5 allows Sarasota residents, visitors, singles, couples, families, groups, and everyone else to enjoy the downtown area, eat at one of several delicious restaurants located downtown, and enjoy live music.
Downtown After 5 begins at 5:00 p.m. and lasts for approximately four hours, until 9:00 p.m. The festival series begins in spring and runs through the end of the year.
The 2006 lineup for Downtown After 5 included acts such as The Venturas, a very popular swing band playing swing from 1920s to the present, including jazz, jive, jump blues, sultry blues, and surf music, as well as classic rhythm and blues and rock and roll, with songs by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Chuck Berry. The Venturas are based in the Tampa Bay area and are regulars at Downtown After 5.
Other performers at Downtown After 5 in the past, all of whom are likely to return for future gatherings, include Big Night Out, a Sarasota-based dance band; The Billy Rice Band, a country group; Chameleon, a live dance band; and the Vine Street Rumba Band, which plays world-beat music with tinges of African beat, Latino, jazz, and reggae music.
The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce will offer each year’s lineup of performers scheduled for Downtown After 5 once the schedule is finalized. This information can be obtained at the Chamber of Commerce website, at http://www.sarasotachamber.com, or by contacting the Chamber, which is located at 1945 Fruitville Road in Sarasota, by telephone at (941) 955-8187.
Sponsors of the Downtown After 5 program include the Herald-Tribune Media Group, Mattison’s City Grille restaurant, and Whole Foods Market. Mattison’s is a popular choice for attendees of Downtown After 5. The restaurant has an outdoor covered bar where Downtown After 5 adult audiences gather for drinks after the show, or before 5:00 p.m. to take advantage of Mattison’s happy hour drink specials. The menu is Italian-themed, and includes brick-oven pizza, fresh seafood, delicious meat and vegetarian dishes, and more, created by chef Paul Mattison, who owns four fine restaurants in the greater Sarasota area.
The electronic culture and arts newsletter "Anything Arts" has called Downtown After 5 "one of downtown Sarasota’s [fastest] growing parties," and deemed the atmosphere at the festival "electric." The Downtown After 5 program is part of a continued revitalization effort of Sarasota’s downtown by the Chamber of Commerce and other groups, and has helped to make downtown Sarasota an exciting destination for all.
