Sterlingfest takes center stage this weekend

STERLING HEIGHTS — The city of Sterling Heights once again is coming together this summer to throw its biggest party of the year: the Sterlingfest Art & Music Fair.

City Manager Mark Vanderpool called Sterlingfest “our marquee event,” adding that “we will have well over 100,000 people descending on the grounds here in Sterling Heights.”

As usual, music lovers have a packed schedule of bands and music genres to pick from. On Thursday evening, Dodge Park’s main stage is scheduled to feature two tribute bands based on Taylor Swift and the Spice Girls – Taylor’s Story and Simply Spice, respectively – followed by a brand-new drone show. 

The next evening, singer-songwriter Carly Collura is scheduled to open for country singer John Michael Montgomery. On Saturday evening, classic rock band Beyond Eleven is slated to open for rock band Night Ranger. 

Besides the main stage, Sterlingfest has a jazz stage and a “Suds ‘n’ Sounds” pavilion stage, each with a lineup of musicians and bands. An additional stage for kids features music, clowning, juggling, magic and animal demonstrations.

For the art side of the festival, an estimated 100-plus art vendors are reportedly registered to set up shop. Meanwhile, attendees can pick up some books at the scheduled July 27 Local Author Book Sale outside the library.

Sterling Heights Community Relations Director Melanie Davis promised the presence of more restaurants and food trucks, as well as a carnival midway. 

“So really, the important thing is, as we know, one of our guiding principles at the city of Sterling Heights is ‘fun,’ and so we’re just saying, ‘Hey, let’s have fun. Come on out to Sterlingfest,’” Davis said.

Davis also discussed some of the new things that visitors could see at this year’s event. Some of this year’s unique happenings will have implications beyond the festival days. 

For instance, Davis announced that, starting July 22, the city would have “Sterling swag” city-themed apparel for sale. Some of the available shirt designs, printed by WolfDog Printing, include the names of Sterling Heights and Dodge Park, while other shirts incorporate the city logo or an abstracted roadmap design. 

The merchandise was expected to make a public debut at Sterlingfest too, and WolfDog expected to have an on-site presence there, she explained.

“This is just a way to celebrate the launching of that brand-new spirit store,” Davis said.

“In the future, we’ll have other things other than apparel. For right now, we’re starting with apparel, but the goal is to push out additional items like, you know, mugs and water bottles and things of that nature on that store.” 

Davis said Lakeside Out of the Box Ventures LLC, which owns the Lakeside Mall property, will pitch a tent at Sterlingfest to build excitement for the upcoming Lakeside City Center, which will replace Lakeside Mall. 

Davis said the display is expected to include a vintage photo booth, a bike path naming contest, and invitations to sign up and keep updated on Lakeside news.

“Part of it is to recognize and appreciate, I guess, the nostalgia factor that we all have for Lakeside Mall,” she said. “But the other part of it is to really get excited about what’s coming next, what the future of Lakeside Mall will be … as Lakeside City Center.” 

Davis added that the tent will invite people to upload images of themselves at Lakeside Mall, or from the vintage photo booth.

“When they collect all those images of people from our community, they are going to use them to create a sort of mosaic and use that as fence wraps for when the construction begins over at Lakeside City Center, because they want to acknowledge the fact that this is so important to the community, and the community is a big part of what Lakeside City Center represents,“ she said.

At a July 16 Sterling Heights City Council meeting, the council accepted corporate sponsorship contributions for Sterlingfest – $20,000 from Lakeside Out of the Box Ventures LLC and $15,000 from Stellantis.

Learn more about Sterlingfest by visiting sterlingfest.info. 

Check out the online Sterling Heights apparel shop by visiting wolfdogstores.com/about-3.

Find out more about the Lakeside City Center by visiting sterlingheights.gov/2069/Lakeside-City-Center.