Monthly Archive: September 2010

Sep 18

Talking about Norfolk in Portland

Categories:

Tourism, Arts & Culture

by HR Partnership

Norfolk: Navy, art and festivals

The Tidewater, Va., city has undergone a major facelift and caters warmly to tourists.

By Nancy Heiser, Special to the Maine Sunday Telegram, re-posted from the Portland Press Herald

The Virginia city of Norfolk is the third largest port city on the Eastern seaboard, after New York and Savannah. It’s also home to the world’s largest naval base, with 70,000 civilian and military personnel.

Boats fill the Elizabeth River during the Parade of Sails in Norfolk, Va.
Photo credit: Nancy Heiser


The mermaid is the city’s new brand.
Photo credit: Nancy Heiser

But for many travelers, this city of 220,000 surrounded on three sides by water sails under the radar.

In the last 25 years or so, Norfolk, one of seven cities in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia also known as Tidewater, has worked to improve its infrastructure and image to embrace tourists. The once shabby downtown has been transformed into an area with waterfront parks, hotels, museum, cruise ship dock, and historic walking trail.

A light rail system to take locals and visitors around the city and eventually to Virginia Beach is nearing completion. The up-to-date airport is easy to navigate and lushly landscaped. And scattered about the city are dozens of mermaid sculptures painted or decorated to correspond with the business plaza or public space they occupy — all part of a public art and branding project the city instituted in 2000.

What a visitor to Norfolk finds is an attractive, welcoming, and prideful city with a thriving dining and art scene, a penchant for waterfront festivals, a love for its naval heritage, and many free or low cost options for entertainment concentrated in a pedestrian-friendly downtown. I visited in June on a subsidized press trip that coincided with Harborfest, a three-day outdoor festival.

Our small group took a tour on Segways along the brick sidewalks of the waterfront, where condos border the imposing Navy destroyer, USS Wisconsin. We navigated our two-wheeled vehicles to the historic Freemason district, with its grand homes and brick townhouses, iron fences, and crape myrtles in full bloom and got as far as The Ghent, a diverse neighborhood of cafes, funky shops, art galleries, and the Chrysler Museum of Art.

The art museum is a treasure. Car company heir Walter Chrysler, whose wife was from Norfolk, gave his vast collection to the museum in 1971. It covers 5,000 years and includes the work of several masters. We sped through some of the museum’s 62 galleries on a tour with chief curator Jeff Harrison. Chrysler “transformed a sleepy provincial museum to one of the great mid-sized museums in the country,” said our host. The best part? Admission is free.

Aside from an impressive performing arts scene, Norfolk is host to more than 100 festivals annually, devoted to jazz, wine, the arts and more. The city stages about one per weekend from March to November. Many of them are free and held at 25-year-old Town Point Park, which had a $12 million dollar renovation last year.

Harborfest, the largest outdoor festival in the Hampton Roads region, has been an institution for 34 years. It draws many to Norfolk’s city center to pay homage to the tall ships, pleasure boats, tugboats and military vessels that make up the two-hour Parade of Sails. This year the culminating ship was the Arleigh-Burke class destroyer USS LaBoon, built at Bath Iron Works.

Harborfest brims with retail booths, crafters, and food carts. During the day, grab some shade and a glass of Virginia wine and enjoy the stilt walkers, canine competitors, and strolling characters at this clean and well-managed festival. Enjoy free live music after sundown. If this one is any indication of the others on the annual list, Norfolk knows how to throw a party.

Bordering Town Point Park is Nauticus, a 120,000 square-foot maritime and marine science museum with touch tanks, high-definition films, and hands-on activities. The USS Wisconsin, now owned by the city and permanently berthed next to Nauticus, is open to visitors with museum admission ($9.50 to $11.95).

A cruise of the miles-long harbor on a tour boat gets you a view of the magnitude and variety of the city’s marine industry, including naval destroyers and aircraft carriers and freighters bound for Europe and China filled with coal from the mines of West Virginia. Yet a river can’t be home to heavy industry and not pay the price of contamination. Efforts are under way to get the broad Elizabeth River “fishable and swimmable” by 2020. Those who want to dip in coastal waters head for Virginia Beach, 20 minutes away by car.

Norfolk is home to other worthy attractions, the Norfolk Botanical Garden and the Virginia Zoo among them. Something else Norfolk deserves credit for — its commitment to convenient and cheap transportation for tourists. Hop on a free metro bus to get to various points along a two-mile route. Or flag down a golf-cart-like vehicle known as FRED (Free Ride Every Day). The vehicle will take you wherever you want to go downtown within 12 city blocks, for free, no tipping. Norfolk wants visitors, and it’s finding creative ways to keep them coming.

Nancy Heiser is an independent writer and editor in Brunswick, Maine.

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Sep 17

Thinking regionally

Categories:

About Hampton Roads, Government & Citizens

by HR Partnership

By Steve Stewart, publisher of The Tidewater News, originally posted on August 28, 2010.

The notion that what’s good economically for Suffolk and Greensville County (in Southside Virginia) is good for Western Tidewater might seem obvious when looking at a map, but that hasn’t always been the way we think in these parts.

As a newcomer, I’ve devoted considerable time over the past four years listening to old-timers reflect on Western Tidewater’s economic successes and failures over the years. To a person, they acknowledge that geographic pettiness has held us back.

Economic stability provided by the Franklin paper mill and a healthy agricultural sector allowed that sort of parochial thinking. In short, we didn’t need anyone else’s help. “We were fat and happy,” one old-timer told me.

So while it might seem unremarkable to an outside observer that, in simultaneous meetings Monday night, Southampton County supervisors would endorse an industrial “mega-site” near Emporia and the Franklin City Council would join a regional fight to reverse the Pentagon’s planned elimination of the Joint Forces Command in north Suffolk, I was heartened to read of both boards’ actions.

Southampton County Administrator Mike Johnson, a big-picture guy who understands the necessity of regional cooperation, prepped the county board well before its vote to endorse the Greensville County industrial site that has been looked at by a couple of automobile manufacturers.

“While conventional thinking might cause one to conclude that the project is competition against our own economic development initiatives, that type of thinking would really be pretty shortsighted,” Johnson told the board. “In addition to the employment opportunities that the center would provide, there is an opportunity for its suppliers to locate in our own industrial parks.”

Former Suffolk Mayor Dana Dickens is another who “gets it.”

Dickens leads the Hampton Roads Partnership, which was created expressly to promote regionalism. A few months back the partnership originated a “Declaration of Interdependence,” signed by 17 localities, including Franklin, Southampton County and Isle of Wight County. Delegates from each joined Gov. Bob McDonnell for a cheesy but fun replication of the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence. A “regional crier” in full Colonial regalia hailed the localities’ intent to “speak together as one region,” “act together as one region” and together “ensure a wonderful future.”

Franklin Mayor Jim Councill, Southampton County Supervisor Anita Felts and Isle of Wight County Supervisor Phillip Bradshaw signed for their respective communities.

Proclamations and ceremonies are easy, of course. The proof will be in future actions. But it’s encouraging at least to get our elected leaders “on the record” for regionalism.

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Sep 16

Hampton Roads Cities Cited as Best Places to Live

Categories:

About Hampton Roads

by HR Partnership

by Janet Boehnlein, student at Virginia Wesleyan College and Intern for the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, originally posted July 15, 2010.

In July, Money magazine and Parenting magazine named four Hampton Roads cities to their national ‘Best’ lists for 2010.

Chesapeake and Suffolk were included in the list of “Best Places to Live” by Money magazine. In the list of 100 cities, Chesapeake came in at No. 85 and Suffolk at No. 91. The list was based on the following factors: housing, affordability, school quality, arts and leisure, safety, health care, diversity and several ease-of-living criteria. The fiscal strength of the government and jobs were also considered in the rankings.

Chesapeake’s “diverse, business-friendly” status helped secure its spot on the list. Also favorably noted were three large companies with offices in Chesapeake: Canon, Cox Communications and Dollar Tree. Finally, the “strong military presence” from nearby Norfolk Naval base gave points to Chesapeake’s stable economy.

Suffolk was noted for its local history and opportunities for leisure. Both Lake Meade and Dismal Swamp State Park were cited as places for residents to relax. The job growth stats for Suffolk, 25.02% from 2000-2009, far exceeded the 15.71% average for the other “Best” cities on the list.

Read the complete article: CNNMoney.com.

Parenting magazine named Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Norfolk to its “Best Cities for Families 2010” list. Virginia Beach came in at No. 14, Chesapeake at No. 45 and Norfolk at No. 66.

The list of 100 cities was created based on several quality of life factors, in order of priority: quality of schools, affordability and availability of quality housing, low crime rates, job availability and growth, number of registered sex offenders, recreational opportunities, quality / quantity of pediatricians / family physicians, commute time and distance, proximity to a good children’s hospital, quality / quantity of childcare facilities and preschools, and air quality. Parenting’s lists were created using data collected from a nationwide survey, sent to members of their ‘MomConnection’ research panel.

A special section of Parenting’s “Best Cities for Families 2010” list focused on the “10 Cities with the Strongest Economies,” and Virginia Beach came in at No. 8.

Using the top 100 cities based on population, the list was narrowed down using six economic categories including robust economies, unemployment rates, property values and commute times, Virginia Beach is considered to be one of the U.S. cities “weathering the economic turmoil well.” Home values on the rise and an unemployment rate of 8% were also major factors.

Read the complete article:  Parenting.com.

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Sep 15

Government spending Whack-a-Mole

Categories:

Government & Citizens

by HR Partnership

Regional rivalry counts for little in state’s fate

August 30, 2010 Editorial by Bernie Niemeier, President & Publisher of Virginia Business magazine

“If it weren’t for Northern Virginia, the rest of the state would look like Mississippi or Arkansas!”  This kind of sentiment tends to be expressed frequently north of the Rappahannock River.  It comes across kind of like a high school girl who thinks her shiny new car is proof that she’s prettier or smarter than everyone else, rather than simply the result of daddy’s money.

Such comparisons usually are followed by complaints about state tax collections and funding formulas that take the wealth of Northern Virginia (NOVA) and redistribute it to the rest of Virginia (ROVA) while Fairfax roads go unpaved.

Recent reports estimate that $35 billion in defense contracts flow to Virginia, with 70 percent of that total going to Northern Virginia.  When it comes to the redistribution of wealth, NOVA arguably receives more than its share of tax dollars collected across the entire U.S.

Maybe it’s not a matter of being prettier or smarter.  Maybe, it’s just being closer to the spigot of federal spending.

On the other hand, does it really matter?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to cut spending on defense contractors by 10 percent in each of the next three years and eliminate the Norfolk-based Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) at a cost of more than 6,000 Virginia-based jobs. This situation makes the NOVA versus ROVA rivalry seem pretty trivial.

Virginia’s unemployment rate has been lower than the national average during the recession, a fact largely attributed to federal spending.

Moreover, the commonwealth’s better–than-average economic statistics are regionally driven. Job creation has occurred primarily in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.  This is not a new phenomenon; it has been going on since the New Deal expansion of government spending in the 1930s.  More recently, the post-9/11 emphasis on global intelligence and homeland security has been an accelerating factor.

Even before the recession, job growth in ROVA was largely nonexistent, with Richmond up only slightly and other regions down during the past decade.

Despite concerns being voiced by Gov. Bob McDonnell, Sen. Jim Webb, Sen. Mark Warner and other Virginia politicians, the Defense Department does not need congressional approval to proceed with Gates’ proposed changes.

But we should note that Virginia fared well overall in the Base Realignment and Closing Commission (BRAC) process, which resulted in significant investments in the Petersburg and Fredericksburg regions.

Furthermore, Gates suggests that his cutbacks could allow additional spending in other areas, such as shipbuilding, that could benefit Hampton Roads.  It is also important to point out that not all government contract spending is defense-related.  A significant portion of Northern Virginia’s IT infrastructure works on non-defense projects.

If this sounds like a game of Whack-a-Mole, that’s the nature of government spending.  You push it down in one area and it pops right back up in another.  Virginia’s government contractors know this game and play it efficiently.

As the nation heads toward economic recovery, we support smart spending by both government and business.  While the effect on our regional economies remains uncertain, let’s keep steady hands on the wheel.

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Sep 14

A campus of cool

Categories:

Innovation, Military Bastion

by HR Partnership

A virtual battlespace operation is explained by Maj. Luis E. Velazquez, with assistance from Cassie Robinette of Unitech, at a demonstration of some 50 companies that do modeling and simulation work on warfighting and experimentation projects for Joint Forces Command in Suffolk. (Virginian-Pilot file photo)

Perhaps it’s because I’m easily impressed, but I often walk away from military installations wowed by things other folks take for granted.

By Donald Luzzatto, editorial page editor, originally published in The Virginian-Pilot on August 13, 2010

At Oceana, I crashed a simulator while the CO (Commanding Officer) watched, and I hung around the tower while jets came and went. At Yokota Air Base, I marveled at the American dedication that could build a huge piece of Nebraska in the middle of a Tokyo suburb. At the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone), I was a little freaked out by the showy posturing of North Korea’s soldiers, not to mention the Potemkin Village in the distance.

Navy Capt. Dave Prothero, Army Staff Sgt. Asha Bell-Gardner, center, and Todd Morgan work on a joint experiment developing new concepts for war-fighters at the U.S. Joint Forces Command in Suffolk. (Photo credit: Joint Forces Command)

Suffolk’s campus of the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) impressed in a quieter way during a visit a few years back. The place isn’t much to look at: A giant generic suburban box – albeit with a fence and gate – surrounded by a crowded parking lot filled with commuter-mobiles and the hormone-fueled roadsters of young soldiers and sailors. Inside are the usual cube farms and conference rooms.

The weirdness starts with the uniforms. There were all kinds representing every branch of the military. That’s more common on installations these days than it was before the wars started, but I still didn’t expect to find it in North Suffolk. I suppose JFCOM’s name should’ve provided a clue.

One of the first things I did after I got back home was to brush up on what all the shoulder hardware means in the different branches, something I’d forgotten in the years since Japan.

I had been invited to JFCOM to watch a tabletop exercise on how to deal with a terrorist threat – specifically a dirty nuke in Norfolk. I expected to see U.S. military folks gaming possibilities – the usual thing we’ve all seen before.

What I found instead was a big room filled with U.S. military folks, along with Homeland Security types, representatives from governments at every level, corporate bees and military officers from a dozen nations running through the risks and solutions, trying to figure out how to coordinate and communicate it all.

I wrote at the time: “They’re deciding how to improve decisions. Communicating to improve communication. It’s simple. Maybe even a little geeky. But if the folks at Joint Forces get it right, it might also save lives.”

There are two ways to look at the SecDef’s (Secretary of Defense) announcement Monday (08-09-10) that he intends to close JFCOM: Either the folks there got it right, or getting it right isn’t as important as it was back in ’07.

That’s when JFCOM’s mission seemed relatively secure. One of its biggest champions – Donald Rumsfeld – had been ousted the year before. The new Secretary of Defense, a guy named Robert Gates, seemed equally enamored of the gadgets and brains at JFCOM.

As the folks in the conference room broke into smaller groups that day, I was taken on a tour of the place.

It’s a bit of a blur – and was even then – but I remember being led into a room filled with people staring into computer screens. I was invited to look over the shoulders of several military folks and civilians as they gathered and distilled real-time information from Afghanistan.

They monitored all kinds of data, including how Afghan civilians felt about what the Americans were doing. You could see in color-coded splendor how U.S. popularity varied from province to province, and over time, and with effort. There was plenty more info on those screens, much of it beyond my comprehension, but the goal of all of it was to help American brass in Afghanistan make better decisions in a place where right and wrong isn’t always obvious. And it was done in a room in Suffolk.

Another computer lab, and another program. On a giant high-def screen, I watched as Hampton Roads sank under rising sea levels and under the tide surge of a hurricane. This was the result of the modeling and simulation you hear about all the time. JFCOM used it for military applications, too. When I was there, I watched as individual, animated houses in the Hague were submerged in the tide. I watched as the program predicted and showed how much of the region would be soaked by seas a foot higher. Two feet. Three.

It was immensely smart stuff done by people who had a mission they believed in. A mission they had been told was critical to the nation’s future. What they were doing in a boring building in northern Suffolk was profoundly cool. Probably important.

After the announcement on Monday, it’s also probably gone.

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Sep 14

Air Quality Monitoring and Forecasting in Hampton Roads

Categories:

About Hampton Roads, Innovation

by HR Partnership

Virginia Beach’s Town Center
Photo credit: Divaris Real Estate

Get the latest air quality information from the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization at:
http://www.hrtpo.org/TPO_OzoneForecast.asp

The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for pollutants considered harmful to public health and the environment.  The EPA has set NAAQS for six principal pollutants: Carbon Monoxide, Lead, Nitrogen Dioxide, Particulate Matter, Ozone, and Sulfur Dioxide.  Of these six pollutants, Ozone is the only one that has historically been a problem in Hampton Roads.

Ground-level ozone is a primary constituent of smog and has been linked to short-term health concerns, particularly among children, asthmatics, people with heart or lung disease, and older adults.  Ozone is formed when nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) react in the presence of sunlight.  NOx forms quickly from emissions from cars, trucks, buses, power plants, and off-road equipment.  NOx is also produced naturally in soils and as part of the nitrogen cycle through nitrification and denitrification of the organic nitrogen in animal wastes.  While some VOCs occur naturally in the environment, others occur only as a result of manmade activities.  VOCs are often compounds of fuels, refrigerants, petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, solvents, hydraulic fluids, paints and paint thinners, and dry-cleaning agents.

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) monitors levels of ozone at three stations in Hampton Roads.  In addition, DEQ releases air quality forecasts and health alerts, based on an Air Quality Index, daily during the summer months when ground level ozone is a problem.

The Air Quality Index is a measurement of air quality that is calculated from ozone and fine particle pollution measurements over the past few hours. A higher AQI indicates a higher level of air pollution, and consequently, a greater potential for health problems.

Level

Color

Description

**

White

Air quality information is unavailable.

0-50

Green

Good air quality. Little or no health risk.

51-100

Yellow

Moderate air quality. People who are unusually sensitive to air pollution may be mildly affected.

101-150

Orange

Unhealthy for sensitive groups. These groups may experience health problems due to air pollution.

151-200

Red

Unhealthy. The general public may experience mild health effects. Sensitive groups may have more serious health problems.

201-300

Purple

Very unhealthy. Everyone is susceptible to more serious health problems.

Past forecasts of an Unhealthy ozone condition in Hampton Roads:

  • 7/6/2010 – Code Red as of 1:00 pm on 7/6/2010
  • 7/6/2010 – Code Orange forecast for 7/7/2010
  • 8/11/2010 – Code Red as of 1:00 pm on 8/11/2010

Click here for the current ozone conditions in Hampton Roads and other regions of Virginia. (http://www.deq.virginia.gov/airquality/)

Click here for information on exceedances of the eight-hour standard in 2010. (http://www.deq.virginia.gov/airquality/2010exceed.html)

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Sep 13

Arts Show Support for Local Military Families

Categories:

Military Bastion, Tourism, Arts & Culture

by HR Partnership

This summer, museums across the country joined the Blue Star Museums program to offer free admission to all active duty military personnel and their families.  Blue Star Museums is an initiative of Blue Star Families, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and empowering military families.  They also aim to raise awareness with civilian leaders and communities about the many challenges of military life.

The National Endowment for the Arts, a public agency dedicated to bringing the arts to all Americans, partnered with Blue Star Families and over 850 participating cultural centers around the country to create the program. It includes children’s museums, fine art museums, history and science museums.  Over 60 of the museums are located in Virginia with several in Hampton Roads.

Hampton Roads, known for its strong military presence, evidenced its pride and support for these local men and women who serve our country at a celebration of the Blue Star Museums program hosted by the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk earlier this summer.  Senator Mark Warner and Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim (pictured) were there to help welcome local families and show their gratitude for their service.  Refreshments were offered before guests were given a tour of the many galleries which include an impressive display of European and American painting and sculpture, a world-renowned glass collection, a rich photography program, Art Nouveau furniture, as well as African, Asian, Egyptian, Pre-Columbian and Islamic art.

The Chrysler Museum is just one example of a local participant as they showed their paintings of Renoir and sculptures chiseled by Bernini. There are other local sites which offered free admission including the Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum and the Ferry Plantation House Historic Museum in Virginia Beach and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum.

The Blue Star Museums program is a great opportunity to expose families to the richness and culture that the arts provide.  It began on Memorial Day and ended on Labor Day.  For questions about the Blue Star Museums program, visit www.bluestarfam.org or www.arts.gov.

Read more about the program from Stephanie Himel-Nelson, Communications Director for Blue Star Families who lives with her military family in Chesapeake, Virginia (Photo credit): http://bluestarfam.org/drupal/?q=node/3106

Kelly Copeland is a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina Wilmington where she majored in Film Studies and minored in Theatre. While searching for the right position on her communication-focused career path, Kelly is interning at WCTV, the City of Chesapeake’s television station, where she is working on Channel 48 News and “Thinking Out Loud” among other programs. She’s also covering Tourism and Arts & Culture for the Hampton Roads blog. Contact Kelly at kellycplnd@gmail.com.

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Sep 13

Think Out Loud

Categories:

About Hampton Roads, Military Bastion

by HR Partnership

“Thinking Out Loud” is a public affairs show hosted by Mark Cox and produced by WCTV, municipal television for the city of Chesapeake. Regional issues and getting ready for Hurricane Earl were the topics of the day (taped September 2, 2010) in addition to:

At 4:00 minutes, Jeff Keever, Sr. Deputy Executive Director at the Port of Virginia, on the present and the future of the Port, one of the biggest economic engines for the Hampton Roads region and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

At 14:25 minutes, Dana Dickens, President & CEO of the Hampton Roads Partnership (HRP), joined to discuss regionalism and the state of regional cooperation, the proposed closing of Joint Forces Command, the modeling and simulation industry and the work of the Partnership to provide a mechanism to diversify the regional economy.

Click on the photo above or use this LINK to open the show in your preferred video media player.

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Sep 12

Pursuing Excellence, Doing More With Less

Categories:

Government & Citizens

by HR Partnership

The Conference of Minority Public Administrators (COMPA) holds its 28th Annual Conference on Friday, October 1, 2010 at the Williamsburg Hospitality House Hotel & Conference Center located at 415 Richmond Road. The theme is “Pursuing Excellence, Doing More With Less.” Each year, during the annual conference, the Distinguished Public Service Award is presented to two Hampton Roads honorees who have demonstrated each of the following:

  • A solid track record of public service by strengthening families and/or communities,
  • A commitment to the professionalism and sensitivity of public service that effects change in the community, and
  • Dedicated leadership, creativity, and integrity.

Conference speakers are: national motivational speaker and author, Willie Jolley; Sr. VP & General Manager of Cox Virginia, Gary McCollum, CEO/President of the Hampton Roads Partnership, E. Dana Dickens, III; Medical Director of the Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute, Christopher Sinesi, MD; and Special Agent in Charge of the Norfolk FBI Field Office, Alex J. Turner. Additional information and online registration is available at www.compahr.org, and the public is invited to attend.

COMPA is unique in that it is the only national organization primarily devoted to providing professional development opportunities for all of America’s minority public administrators. COMPA became a section of ASPA (American Society for Public Administration) as a result of concern for institutional and social barriers to the professional development and employment of minority administrative talent in all levels of public service. The Hampton Roads Chapter of COMPA was organized in 1979.

Membership is primarily comprised of public service professionals at all levels of local government from across the Hampton Roads Region. Special attention is given to future public administrators—providing leadership and positive role models for young and aspiring professionals.

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Sep 12

Now Playing in Hampton Roads

Categories:

Tourism, Arts & Culture

by HR Partnership

Your757.com is the new NowPlayingVA.org. It’s a name change. It’s a game changer! It’s no cost and all reward. Learn how Hampton Roads can promote events and attractions at no charge.

Come to the WHRO studio, 5200 Hampton Boulevard, on Wednesday, September 29th from 6:00pm to 7:30pm. RSVP to Amy Evans by September 27th at amy.evans@whro.org or (757) 889-9426.

What is NowPlayingVA.org?
NowPlayingVA.org is a community calendar designed to serve as the all-inclusive resource for arts and entertainment events in Hampton Roads.

Who is NowPlayingVA.org?
NowPlayingVA.org is currently managed by WHRO, dedicated to enhancing the lives of the citizens in the communities it serves by responding to their need to be engaged, educated, entertained and enlightened. NowPlayingVA.org is also a member of the Artsopolis Network, a group of cities from around the country dedicated to effectively promoting arts and culture in their communities.

Why NowPlayingVA.org?
It’s simple. NowPlayingVA.org is the region’s comprehensive resource for information about the arts, entertainment, community, and sports events in Hampton Roads. By providing complete information about what to do and where to go for unique cultural experiences, NowPlayingVA.org hopes to inspire greater participation in this broad range of events and activities.

About the NowPlayingVA.org Community
All arts, entertainment, community, or sports organizations in the Hampton Roads region may join the community and submit their events to the calendar free of charge.

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