KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Every year, a festival returns to downtown Knoxville and fills the city with scents and sounds from a variety of delicious cuisines and exciting performances.
The 11th annual Knox Asian Festival will open to the public on Sept. 8 at 10:30 a.m. It will last until around 6 p.m., giving people a chance to taste authentic foods from countries like China, The Philippines, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and more.
Ahead of the event, organizers held a poster contest. First place went to Margarita Lu-McClure, who created a design featuring The Sunsphere in a traditional Asian style. The poster was used on promotional materials and will be displayed during the festival.
The festival is expected to fill World's Fair Park with vendors and performances, cooking meals from their countries. The performance lawn will also feature country-specific booths offering different activities.
At 10:15 a.m., the Asian Cultural Parade will begin and march towards the amphitheater before a concert at 11:10 a.m. by Clayton-Bradley Academy. At around that time, the performances and activities on the festival lawn and performance lawn will also begin. They include Korean fan dancers, a performance by the Knoxville Kendo Club, an Asian fashion show and a cosplay contest.
A full schedule of the different performances and activities is available online.
Organizers also said this year's event will also bring out ASHURA, a ninja corps whose performances include shuriken, sword-fighting and kusarigama demonstrations.
Kumi Alderman, an organizer of the event, said the act will be one of the main events for the festival.
"They will show you how they train to be a real ninja and then the weapons that they use because the ninjas don't use the samurai swords. They use farmer's equipment," Alderman said.
On Sept. 7, the day before the event opens to the public, people who buy a $25 VIP ticket can enjoy the ninja performance ahead of time along with a Japanese drum show and Indian dance. On Sept. 8, it will cost $3 to enter the festival.
The event was free in previous years, but nonprofit organizers said they needed to charge a $3 admission fee to help cover the event's cost.
Alderman said the money would help grow the festival and her organization.
"We did a free festival to show what Asian culture is. And now our nonprofit would like to grow as an educational nonprofit, and we would like to have an outreach program for K-12 schools and senior centers. And we would like to build our Asian Culture Center here in Knoxville," Alderman said.