Overview
This festival is part of the Tall Ships Challenge® for Tall Ships America (formerly, the American Sail Training Association). The tall ships are normally scheduled to run a tour of the Great Lakes every three or four years. (The tour was moved up a year from 2010 to 2013 to coincide with the anniversary of the Battle of Put-In-Bay.)
The Bay City Tall Ships Celebration was managed by one section of the local crew, while Jerry Casault managed what he called “Ballads and Brews”, the musical portion of the festival (which also seems to have run in years where there were no tall ships). Many groups from North America and Europe were invited to perform at this event, last held in 2019. This was notable as it was one of the few events anywhere in North America to regularly bring maritime music performers over from Europe. The event was scheduled to run again in 2022 but lingering concerns about the Covid-19 pandemic was said to have made the committee decide to cancel the event.
The Ballads and Brews Facebook page has not been updated since 2015.