Reggae of Bob Marley to waft down Trinity

   Lovers of reggae music and cultural art should get ready for the longest annual touring festival in the world.

   The 11th annual Bob Marley Festival Tour will stop at Trinity Park in Fort Worth, May 12-13. This will be the second year the tour, which has visited over 45 cities in the United States, will stop in Fort Worth.

   The Festival Tour with this year’s theme Natural Mystic, features live reggae music, Caribbean, African and Third World arts and crafts along with foods with a tropical flair.

   Most of the proceeds go to non-profit organizations. In the past 10 years, the event has generated over $225,000 and more than a million pounds of food, school supplies and books for these needy organizations.

    “I wanted the tour to celebrate reggae and worldbeat music and the things that were important to Marley,” Sirron Kyles, tour founder, said.

   The tour started in Houston March 10 and will end Oct. 21 in San Antonio. In between those dates, the tour will stop in several Texas cities as well as cities in Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, Arizona and California.

   Tickets to the festival can be obtained through Ticketmaster for $5 but are $8 the day of the event. Festival goers who arrive within the first three hours can get in with a $5 donation or $8 worth of non-perishable foods. After 3 p.m., the admission jumps to $10 in donations.

   For more information, call the Bob Marley Festival Hotline at 214-821-2879 or contact Ticketmaster.