The Open-Air, Family-Focused “Ingenuity at the Lake” Goes Down This Saturday

Ingenuity's 2021 festival, dubbed Ingenuity at the Lake, will be a smaller affair than in previous years but will still offer plenty of fun and activities this Saturday from 2 to 8 p.m. at the South and North Gordon Parks.

This year offers a more open-air, family-focused event that will focus on neighborhood connectivity and lakefront access. Ingenuity at the Lake will feature a Lakefront Stage plus roaming performances, local artisans, food trucks, a beer garden, and a range of exhibitors with a special focus on neighborhood organizations, initiatives and community members.

"This is a unique time to be working at the intersection of events, entrepreneurship, and community engagement," says Ingenuity Artistic Director Emily Appelbaum. "We've experienced such a roller-coaster these past 18 months, it feels really good simply to create a platform to get together and check on each other. While being as responsive as possible to changing public health conditions, we recognize the benefits of holding space for everyone who has fought and made it through — whether as an artist, an entrepreneur, an institution, or an individual — to just come out and share their work, their curiosity, their joy, and their hopes for rebuilding and building the strongest possible future."

Additional programming will include make n' take youth art and hands-on technology experiences, plus family-friendly outdoor activities from Recess Cle and IngenuityLabs member Rollin' Buckeyez Foundation, with their full-size pop-up roller rink. Other IngenuityLabs exhibitors will include Makers Alliance, the Ingenuity Ingeneers bringing make n’ take crafts, and the Splice Cream Truck mobile recording studio, capturing visitors' stories live on vinyl records for participants to take with them.

Since its founding in 2004, the event has been held across downtown, from Public Square to Playhouse Square, Northcoast Harbor to the Detroit Superior Bridge. Since 2016, the event has been held in Ingenuity's year-round home, IngenuityLabs at the Hamilton Collaborative - a 300,000-square-foot former industrial facility in the Saint Clair Superior Neighborhood. IngenuityLabs offers year-round space, tools and resources for area creatives through their IngenuityLabs incubator; weekly hands-on workshops; entrepreneurship programming and more.

Depite its shift in focus and breath, the fest will still offer an eclectic variety of programing to engage with this weekend.