Acafest Alive and Well

Even though I have not been with Acappella Ministries for over three years now, I am still connected in a round about way. Keith has kept in touch and occasionally needs help with this or that... usually something to do with the Internet.

The past couple of days he has had me working on getting the domain kinks worked out for the new Acafest site. Aca what, you say? Long history. Here we go.

The Acappella Christian Music Seminar, or ACMS, started in the late 80's in Paris, TN. In the beginning it was a week long festival/seminar in based in Acappella's home town and studios. People came from all over the country (and later on, the world) to participate in classes about the art of acappella music and listen to singing groups perform. It always culminated in the homecoming concert of Acappella. As time went on, AVB and Vocal Union were added to the mix.

It started very simply. I remember my first year involved. Our home church, Paris Chapel, met in an old empty WalMart building. This is also where ACMS was hosted. Our homecoming concert of 1988 was on a flat bed trailer in the parking lot. A good portion of the city came out to hear it. It was stinking hot out there. And we were wearing jackets. Holy cow.

A few years on, we reduced it to a 3-day event and held it in the new Paris Landing Convention Center. It became international in nature with performances by groups from France and Guadeloupe (that small island nation in the Caribbean). It eventually got too big for us to handle properly. We had to make the decision to really put a ton of effort into it, or redirect our efforts into our ministry. The choice was easy. Make the main thing the main thing. So Acafest (as it was called by then) was retired for a season. A decade, it appears.

Acafest has been revived, now subtitled "The International Acappella Singing Festival." It is scheduled for Nov. 1-3, 2007 in Nashville. Who knows? Maybe my worship team from wherever I end up in the next few weeks can participate? That would be a blast. I've got 13 months to get my schedule worked out. :)