COLLEGE TOWN, FL \u2014 The donation-based Taste Festival brings arts, science, theater, and local entertainment to Railroad Square to unite the Tallahassee community.<\/p>\n
WATCH FULL REPORT BELOW:<\/p>\n
The Tallahassee Arts, Science and Theater Experience brings the community together at Railroad Square<\/p>\n
The Taste Festival at Railroad Square may sound like it is about food, but it actually stands for the Tallahassee Arts, Science, and Theater Experience. The entirely donation-based arts, culture, and education festival brings all the flavors of Tallahassee to Railroad Square.<\/p>\n
The action is happening this weekend at 621 Gallery. The event kicked off on Thursday at the Challenger Center with a film festival.<\/p>\n
“Taste is bringing the community of Tallahassee together and highlighting the many aspects of it,” Justin Moore, president of T.A.S.T.E., said. “It genuinely feels and is factually a community-based festival. It won’t happen without the community pulling together to make it happen.”<\/p>\n
“A big part of this is making it something that people can come to without worrying about money,” Alex O\u2019Connell, CEO of T.A.S.T.E., said. “It’s all donation-based, and the only reason that we’re charging a donation is to make people feel a part of something. You have skin in the game, and we want people to know that even if you don’t have any money to give. You have something to provide, and that’s why we’re a community.”<\/p>\n
From Florida State University professors giving presentations to local artists, the festival features a variety of entertainment. I even got to play a video game from Mindless Entertainment, a local Tallahassee video game developer. The game features three attacks using a square, circle, and triangle. I moved really fast, and it was awesome and sick, but it is a lot harder than it may look.<\/p>\n
“It means a lot to have something that we’re really proud of because we’ve been working on all these projects for a long time, and to be able to have a cohesive presentation of them is just special for us to see,” Corey Downs, co-founder of Mindless Entertainment, said.<\/p>\n
“I was thinking about on the drive over, just like, I mean, I’ve just seen our booth today, I was just like, man, you just put a bunch of irons in the fire, and they just grow over time,” Cameron Downs, co-founder of Mindless Entertainment, said.<\/p>\n
With a bunch of different types of performances going on, I had a chance to catch up with one of the headliners, Epic. She said she was excited to be there, and it has a lot to do with the event organizers.<\/p>\n
“I believe in them so much,” Epic said. “They’re very creative, they’re incredibly community oriented, and they would work twice as hard just to put these events together and bring people together.”<\/p>\n
Organizers had one more message to share.<\/p>\n
“It means a coming together of this community, a bunch of different people,” Jeff Sammarco, lighting designer, said. “You can do these events. I hope this inspires people to do these types of things in their own hometowns. The people want this type of stuff.”<\/p>\n
The festival continues until 2 a.m. tonight, and doors open back up tomorrow, March 28, at 12 p.m. in College Town.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n
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