Royal Oak is now the new home for the summer festival Arts, Beats & Eats.
Excerpt:
Royal Oak officials, disappointed after losing a broadcast chain's New Year's Eve celebration planned for their downtown, were all smiles Tuesday when it became official the Arts, Beats & Eats festival is to relocate there in 2010.
The announcement at Sangria's restaurant in downtown Royal Oak was a blow for Pontiac -- host of the event from its start 12 years ago -- but a boost for Royal Oak and its downtown, city officials and merchants said.
In Royal Oak, the event likely will double in size from the estimated 225,000 in Pontiac this year, said Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, founder of the festival that runs for four days each Labor Day weekend.
"You're going to enjoy this with 450,000 of your close, personal friends," Patterson told the crowd. Pontiac officials were "really crestfallen" to lose the event, he said, but were unrealistic in demanding $100,000 from the festival to host it in 2010.
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