Festival of Combustion: The Hottest Ticket in Town
Rivers of Steel is celebrating the 10th annual Festival of Combustion at Carrie Blast Furnaces on Oct. 3.
PHOTO BY OLLIE GRATZINGER
It very well may be the hottest ticket in town.
The Festival of Combustion, presented by Rivers of Steel at the historic Carrie Blast Furnaces, is a celebration of the region’s rich industrial heritage. Attendees can expect an afternoon of live demonstrations by artists and craftspeople exhibiting traditional and contemporary metalworking techniques, including blacksmithing, copper smithing, riveting and aluminum casting.
Visitors also can shop a marketplace of locally made trinkets, grab a bite to eat from a food truck or make their own souvenirs through an assortment of hands-on activities and crafts.
Once the sun goes down, folks can sit in the glow of smoldering embers and watch as fireworks illuminate the site’s dramatic silhouette.
The pièce de résistance is the annual iron pour, carried out by Rivers of Steel staff artists and students enrolled in the three-day Intro to Iron Casting workshop. The spectacle involves a tall, heated iron furnace — iron needs a higher heat than other metals in order to liquify — and an impressive gantry crane to transport the molten heavy metal. The orange, lava-like iron is then poured into molds created by workshop participants to cast everything from sculptural art to household items and trinkets, which will be sold in the Rivers of Steel gift shop.
The Festival of Combustion blasts off from 3 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3. Tickets can be purchased at the gate for $30, but you can snag them for $25 if you buy online. The event is free for those younger than 18 years old.
