Category: 2021 Best of C-VILLE Staff Picks

What if you took the VIP experience of a music festival and turned it into the entire event? That’s the question Festy founder Michael Allenby asked himself last fall, when circumstances made hosting even a small-scale outdoor festival seem impossible. 

Fortunately, the word “impossible” isn’t part of Allenby’s vocabulary. Which is why he relocated the Festy from Nelson County to Earlysville, and the grounds-with-a-view at Chisholm Vineyards. He announced that concertgoers could buy tickets in pods of two to six for any of 14 live music shows, and experience them from private boxes, roped off and six feet apart. Contactless food and drink orders were available, as were fancy restroom trailers instead of cramped port-a-potties.

The response? “It was AWESOME!” said one attendee on Instagram. “Very luxurious. Food/drinks were delivered to us super fast, and we could sing our hearts out without disturbing anyone else.”  

The entire endeavor was such a smash that not only did it return to Chisholm Vineyards in the spring, but Allenby expanded the Festy to Charleston, South Carolina, and Asheville, North Carolina, scheduling a total of 150 shows running through November. (This season’s crowdsourced local lineup has included Eddie From Ohio, Rising Appalachia, and Aoife O’Donovan.)

“There is no better time to innovate in the live music business than right now,” Allenby says. “I have always fantasized about starting from scratch.”

The Fralin Museum of Art had to close its doors during the pandemic, but it did not close its collection. For the Fralin from Home initiative, the museum recorded talks with curators, faculty, students, and community members, and even designed art projects that families could do at home.

When the coronavirus forced The Front Porch to shut its doors, the downtown venue kept live music alive with its Save the Music weekly concert series, featuring livestreamed performances by more than 100 local artists over the course of the year. Thanks to an anonymous donation, all musicians were compensated for their time—for many, the only paid gig they could get during the pandemic. Music lovers watching from home also pitched in, raising more than $20,000 for nonprofits in need.

Once you’ve settled your kids in the children’s section at the Crozet Library, park yourself a few feet away in one of the rocking chairs with a view. You know the ones (and if you don’t, hotfoot it over there ASAP): beautiful, comfy wooden wonders that face a wall of windows and mountain scenery in all its seasonal glory. Relax and say ahhh.

If you’re expecting the same old, same old (a basket filled with dress-up clothes, say, or some beat-up Legos and a small train table or two), you’re in for a huge surprise when you step inside the Virginia Discovery Museum on the Downtown Mall. 

The first thing you see is Amazing Airways, a tangle of tubes adhered to the front window that allows kids to experience airflow as they yank levers and slide shafts to send balls and scarves whooshing through the twists and turns of a pneumatic air system. A few feet away is the Magnet Wall for gravity exploration, and across from that is the Automoblox, designed by Charlottesville High School BACON (Best All-around Club of Nerds) students to teach little ones about force, mass, motion, and friction. And that’s just the beginning of the fun (and learning) in the Front Gallery, which was completely renovated in 2016. 

Next door is the Construction Zone, equipped with several building spaces to create architectural wonders while facilitating teamwork and gross- and fine-motor skills, and a log cabin that allows kids to travel back in time to experience life in 1700s Virginia. Not far away is the book-filled Literacy Lounge, the calm and quiet Sensory Studio, and the Creation Station art space. In the museum’s real-world Back Gallery, renovated in 2018, children can run a bank or post office, simulate a visit to the doctor, cook up goodies at a café, and tend to crops on their farm. 

When asked if some exhibits are more popular than others, Janine Dozier, VDM’s executive director, says everything is “designed to encourage children to use their imagination to incorporate elements from all of the exhibits into a custom museum experience each time they visit.” It’s not uncommon, she adds, for the staff to find a robot created with Construction Zone blocks in the Colonial cabin, or coins from the Financial Fundamentals bank tucked for safe-keeping in a Literacy Lounge book.

“As the museum has worked to fulfill its mission of being a place for play and learning for all, we have developed more richly layered exhibits for use by all ages and abilities,” Dozier says. “To inspire children to use their imagination, there are no rules for how to engage with an exhibit—it’s up to every child to chart their own adventure.” 

Founded in 1981, the VDM is in its 40th year of consecutive operation. It moved to the Downtown Mall in 1990, and, according to Dozier, has “been a key driver of the downtown economy ever since.” Before the pandemic, the museum had welcomed more than 70,000 visitors a year, 23 percent of whom are there thanks to free admission programs. The Discovery Museum’s “most important work in recent years has been ensuring that it is an inclusive and accessible resource for all families in our community,” Dozier says.

But the VDM took a huge hit when COVID-19 forced it to keep its doors closed for more than a year (it reopened in May to groups with reservations and for scheduled programs, and hopes to reopen for general admission around Labor Day). And while its free or low-cost virtual programs were well-attended during the shutdown, the museum lost over $400,000, and will rely heavily on donations for the foreseeable future. Dozier hopes to raise $200,000 through the museum’s Discover VDM, Again campaign (vadm.org/donate), which, among many other things, will allow for the refurbishment of the iconic Downtown Mall carousel. 

“The Virginia Discovery Museum is a cornerstone of arts and culture in Charlottesville,” Dozier says. “Everyone is welcome, and everyone at the museum shares the common interest of seeing all of our community’s children learn, find joy, and thrive.”

At the first snowfall of the year, there’s only one place to be: Booker T. Washington Park, that nine-acre spot off Preston Avenue with a basketball court, swimming pool, and, of course, massive sledding hill. Grab the nearest toboggan, cafeteria tray or, in a pinch, mattress (we’ve seen it!) and head out. Just steer clear of UVA coeds—they show no mercy on the slope.

Genuine darkness is rare in modern life. Even at night, as we curl up in our beds, we’re illuminated in some small way by the shimmer of streetlights coming through the windows or the blink of our devices charging on our bedside tables. 

In the Blue Ridge Tunnel, the darkness swallows you whole. There’s a peacefulness down there, like being underwater, where sound is distorted and light is rare.  

So bring a flashlight if you plan to walk (or bike!) down the three-quarter-mile tunnel, which opened in Nelson last fall and has become a favorite for adventurers local and far-flung.

Construction began on the tunnel in 1849, under the leadership of French engineer Claudius Crozet (sound familiar?). After nine years of blasting through the hard rock of the Blue Ridge, the tunnel opened in 1858. Trains used the path to pass below the mountains until 1944, when the route went out of service after a larger tunnel was built nearby. In 2012, the Blue Ridge Tunnel Foundation began restoring the long-abandoned space, and the path opened to tourists last year. Catch the trail at the southern entrance of Skyline Drive from sunrise to sunset every day.