One thing that will be filling the streets of downtown Iowa City this year is soul.‘Sand in the City’ was a creative way to get people out of the house, displaying many different sand sculptures throughout the downtown area, but this year a change is made to bring diversity to focus. I caught up with Summer of the Arts Executive Director, Lisa Barnes to get some scoop on the upcoming ‘Iowa Soul Festival’ and what we can expect from the event.
“There were a number of factors involved”, Barnes said when asked why the board made the decision to discontinue ‘Sand in the City.’ “But the main reason being that the event was very labor intensive. It took a lot of staff time for an event that had grown but wasn’t really up to the size of event that we had anticipated after four years.”
Two years ago, Diversity Focus had approached Summer of the Arts with the idea of a soul festival, claiming the African-American community is one that is identified as being underserved. The goal of the festival is to expand diversity in our area by getting a deeper look into other populations with food, music, art and activities inspired by the African-American culture.
The Soul Festival will not be drastically different from the usual festivals we’ve seen in the past.
“With the Soul Festival, what we’re trying to do is have a lot of similar components as to what we have at our other festivals, but this year especially focuses on the music and that’s why we were able to partner with Hancher and bring in Buddy Guy on Friday night which is going to be a huge draw to the area.”
Other vendors to be featured at the festival are things such as the regular Culinary Row, but many will be very specific to soul foods. A small art pavillion representing either African-American or African-American inspired art will also be featured. The Fun Zone will be expanded as the students are here and there will be an arts and crafts booth, the regular bouncy house, the jousting that appears at Jazz Fest, a basketball hoop shoot; they’re really expanding that area so there will be a lot of activities to participate in.
“I heard about the soul festival from a friend’s mom”, Savannah Reese ‘14 said. “I was shocked when I heard about ‘Sand in the City’ as I have gone to that event for as long as I can remember, although, I am anxious to see what the soul festival has to offer as I am very proud and supportive of the diversity in Iowa City.”

The Iowa Soul Festival will be held downtown September 13-15