Tag Archives: Peoria Civic Center

Ignite Peoria 2014

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all,

We had quite a art event here in Peoria this past weekend. It was the first year for Ignite Peoria 2014 and in essence it was created to jump start the Peoria community in the world of art. This event has been in the works for a long time and I can’t even begin to imagine how much work went into this.

It was a real smorgasbord of things going on durning the Ignite event on Saturday; music to theatre to the visual arts. There really was something for everyone and that’s always good to see! The other thing that I liked is that they had a lot of activities for the kids to do and to get involved with and that was a big part of this event. It seems with kids having so many activities like sports and school stuff, to get them off of the computer or video games is a good thing!

One of the activities that I really enjoyed seeing and photographing was some of the different “world” dancers. They had everything from little kids to adults dressing in their native countries garb. They had their music and would do a traditional dance and it was wonderful! I just loved the colors of all the costumes!

Here’s one of my snaps from the first Ignite Peoria event.

I hope that you’re going to have a great week to come and thanks for checking out my work!!!

Kev

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Spotlighting Peoria

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Monday mid-morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

I’ve been a busy little beaver this past week. I’m doing some charity work for the United Way on a project for them and we got some good shots this past week and I know we’ll be getting some more good snaps this week as well!

The other project that I’m working on is one for the Peoria Convention and Visitors Bureau and this one will be going on for the next year. What we are trying to do is to step up the quality of the PACVB library of images that they use to help promote the Central Illinois area. We have a really good story to tell here in Peoria for visitors that come to the city to see places like the Peoria Riverfront Museum or the Caterpillar Visitors Center. We’ve also got visitors coming for different events like the TT motorcycle races or the IHSA boys basketball tournament. There are also a number of great hotels and restaurants, so we really have a lot going for our area!

One of the other areas that the PACVB is working on is the convention business. I shot some photos at the Growmark convention at the Peoria Civic Center this past week. Getting big conventions like this is huge for not only the Peoria Civic Center, but also the Peoria area. A lot of local business also benefit from these conventions as well like the hotels, restaurants, gas stations and shopping centers. This is why PACVB is working hard to get more conventions like Growmark to come here to Central Illinois.

Here’s one of my shots of the entire ballroom for the Growmark convention at the Peoria Civic Center and you can see just how big of a deal that this is!

Thanks as always for checking out my work and I hope that you have a great rest of the week!!!

Kev

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Joe Bonamassa

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!

I’m getting back into the flow of things this past week and I can’t complain!

One of the goodies that I shot this past week was a concert with blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa at the Peoria Civic Center. Joe Bonamassa is probably a musician that you haven’t heard of, but he is a guitar player’s guitar player. He did a really interesting thing for his Peoria Civic Center show. The first half of the show was him sitting down and playing an acoustic set of songs with a three piece band and they were all ‘unplugged”. There was a very nice array of songs and different genre’s of music as well. Once the acoustic set was done, they took a 15 minute break and got ready for an electric set. The other thing that I really liked about his electric set is that he had a completely different group of musicians playing in the band for this set!!! Again, a great group of songs and genre’s of music that really made it interesting!!!

Here’s a few of my snaps from the Joe Bonamassa show at the Peoria Civic Center.

Have a great week as always and thanks for checking out my photos!!!

Kev

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The Moody Blues

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Monday morning greetings to one and all!!!!!

Shooting bands in clubs and concerts is something that I’ve always enjoyed doing! For the last number of years, I haven’t had the time or opportunity to do it and it’s something that I’ve really missed! I got my chance to get back into the game this past week in Peoria to shoot the Moody Blues at the Peoria Civic Center. Those of you under 30 probably won’t know who this band is, but to those of us in that 50 and over range, we know all about the band!

I was shooting photos for Frank Productions out of Madison, Wisconsin who was promoting the MB show here in Peoria! The concert was in the Civic Center Theater and they had a sold out show!!!! It was my first time shooting in the theater having seen a number of shows there as part of the audience. One of the challenges is that with any press pass, you can shoot the first three songs and then you’re done! You’ve got to make sure that you get your shots and at most you have 15 minutes of time to get those shots! The other challenge in shooting at the PCC theater is that you can’t get in front of the stage since they have seating there, so it’s either stage right or stage left to get your shots! There’s no time to mess around with a gig like this!!!!! 🙂

The band came out and right out of the box starting cranking out some of their hits! While they were singing and playing I was working on getting my photos! I think that I got a number of good snaps and here are some of my shots from this past Monday night!

It’s another busy week for me, so I’ve got to get rocking and rolling!!!!!! I hope that you’re going to have a great week to come and thanks as always for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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Women of Faith

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all,

I’ve been working with the Peoria Civic Center this past month documenting some of the events going on and also working on new fresh photos for them to use in their marketing materials. This past weekend the PCC hosted the “Women of Faith” conference in the arena. There were thousands of women there listening to a wide variety of spiritual messengers and it was pretty neat to see! When I first walked into the arena I thought I had walked into a full blown rock and roll concert. An amazing set up with incredible lights, sound system and video projection! First rate to say the least and a very well thought out and produced show!!!!

Here’s a few of snaps from the Peoria stop of the “Women of Faith” 2013 tour.

I hope that you’re going to have a wonderful week and thanks for taking the time to check out my work!

Kev

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Wow!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all of my friends around this big beautiful place we call Terra Firma!!!!!

One of the projects that I’ve been working on lately is to help the Peoria Civic Center freshen up their images to help promote itself as a place to host Peoria events. We’re very fortunate that we have a lot of options here in Peoria for clients to look at for their events, be it meetings or a convention or even in this case a wedding!!! I got an e-mail from the Civic Center telling me that they had a great wedding reception that they would be hosting and said the room would be a knock out! Well, when I first walked into this room at the Peoria Civic Center, my first word was “Wow”!!!!! I don’t know how you could describe it any other way and I can’t think of a better word that describes some place knocking your socks off like this room did!!!!

We have an awful lot to be proud of here in our city of Peoria and the Civic Center is one of those gems!!!!!

Here’s one of my snaps of the room that made me say “Wow”!!!! You might be wondering also about the food, “Oh yea, it’s good”!!!! Here’s a link for that! http://kevinmay.com/kmc2pcc11aug13.jpg

I want to say thank you for always taking the time to see what I’m shooting and what I’ve been up too!!! Have a very wonderful week to come!!!!

Thanks again!!!!

Kev

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23 years and counting!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!

Here I am after 23 years of working for myself and every year I’m shocked that this all is still happening! To think that I was assistant all those many years ago and to see all the things that I have seen and photographed since then, it’s truly been a wonderful ride!!!

What is so stunning to me is how what I’ve done has been changing so much over these last 23 years. When I started back in April of 1990, we were shooting film and I’ve been doing that ever since I was a kid and first picked up a Kodak Instamatic camera back in the 60’s! Here we are all these years later now shooting digitally for the last 13 years and that in my mind is amazing! We’ve come a long way and I know that how we do things will always be changing and evolving and you have to be ready and embrace the change that is coming!!!

Here’s a shot of my home for the last 31 years, Peoria! P-Town as I like to call it!!!! This night photo is of the Peoria Civic Center, Peoria City Hall, The “Twin Towers“, Sacred Heart Church, and The Pere Marquette Hotel!

For my friends on Facebook, here’s a cover photo that you can upload as well!!! http://kevinmay.com/kmcpia15apr13fb.jpg

Thanks so much for 23 great years and I sure appreciate your taking the time to see what I’m shooting!!!

Kev

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