Huge Crowd Attends Rison in the Fall Festival Before Storm Forces Cancellation of Concert

  • SUNNY RAINED OUT - Sunny Sweeney (front) meets with Rison Shine members Austin Compton, Celeste Beatty, President Kristy Strother, Roy Phillips and Festival Director Douglas Boultinghouse. Sweeney and Boultinghouse made the decision together to cancel the final performance because weather conditions made it unsafe to continue the show.
    SUNNY RAINED OUT - Sunny Sweeney (front) meets with Rison Shine members Austin Compton, Celeste Beatty, President Kristy Strother, Roy Phillips and Festival Director Douglas Boultinghouse. Sweeney and Boultinghouse made the decision together to cancel the final performance because weather conditions made it unsafe to continue the show.
  • GREAT TURNOUT - Prior to the storms rolling in, Rison Shine est imated a record turnout of attendees. With the increase in vendors and people, multiple vendors reported sell-outs during the day. The rain and storm rolling in around 5 p.m. ended the festival early.
    GREAT TURNOUT - Prior to the storms rolling in, Rison Shine est imated a record turnout of attendees. With the increase in vendors and people, multiple vendors reported sell-outs during the day. The rain and storm rolling in around 5 p.m. ended the festival early.
    RISON - Though rain and storms blowing through caused an abrupt end to the 35th annual Rison in the Fall Festival, the organizers are still considering Saturday's event a huge success."We had more vendors this year than we've ever had," said Douglas Boultinghouse, director of the festival. "And a majority of them sold out of items and had record sales for their business." Boultinghouse said from what he and his Rison Shine Community Development, Inc. "army" witnessed, crowd attendance this year reached an all-time high prior to the rain.Local meteorologist Hayden Nix notified Boultinghouse early Saturday morning to prepare for rain and storms to hit Rison by 6 p.m., which resulted in consultations to shift the entire production of the day up in time."We worked quickly to forego soundchecks, start early, shorten show lengths and try to get through all five acts scheduled for the day," he said.The plan worked flawlessly until the rain moved in sooner, preventing headliner Sunny Sweeney from being able to take the stage by a rescheduled time of 5 p.m.Boultinghouse said the shift in time allowed Laura Caroline, Copper Flats, Ernie Halter and Thom and Coley to get through their shows.He said he and Sweeney consulted for over an hour, monitoring the weather, hoping the lightning would let up so she could take the stage after the storm.Realizing there was no stopping, Sweeney and the members of Rison Shine made a joint announcement that the show would have to be canceled."I am so sorry it got rained out," Sweeney said, sharing with Boultinghouse that she would like to come back someday.Boultinghouse said he appreciated the cooperation, patience and support of all of the artists, vendors and guests as he worked to get revised plans in place."For me, for Sunny, our stage crew and everyone, our top priority was safety," he said of hav-ing to make the decision to cancel the final act.He said the ov...

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