The second week of September means festival time in Carnegie.

The annual Arts and Heritage/Music Festival will take place today, tomorrow and Saturday on East Main Street between Washington and Elk avenues.

Mayor James Pascoe, who has organized the festival for the last eight years, promises a blockbuster event.

"This will be our biggest and, hopefully, our best festival," he said.

Thirty bands will participate on three stages. The music will start at 4:30 p.m. today and tomorrow and at noon on Saturday. The first stage is near Broadway Street, the second near Walnut Street and the third near the bridge that crosses Chartiers Creek.

Besides numerous blues bands, this year's festival will include local favorite The Mansfield Five, as well as oldies' band Johnny Angel and the Halos and newcomer Kid Kyle & His Kool Kats, which features an 11-year-old New Jersey boy who Mayor Pascoe says sounds "just like Frankie Lymon." Kid Kyle's Kool Kats are four adult male back-up singers.

But music isn't the festival's only draw.

Carnegie Painted VI exhibit at Phil Salvato's 3rd Street Gallery will again feature a variety of artistic expressions about the community. Underwritten with a $500 gift from Fidelity Bank, the top three awards in the juried show will be presented at a 6 p.m. reception tomorrow. The exhibit, however, will be on display Saturday through Sept. 29.

There also will be a variety of ethnic food, craft booths and family entertainment, including children's games, a petting zoo, a magician, face painting, the Pirate Parrot and Eat 'n Park's Cookie Man.

To top off the festival, fireworks will be launched from the bridge between 10 and 10:30 p.m. Saturday. The location was selected "so you can see them from anywhere on Main Street," said the mayor.

To accommodate the festival's stages, tents and booths, parking and traffic will be prohibited on East Main Street between Washington and Elk avenues through Sunday. Also, Broadway and Mary streets will be closed. Those who use the Elk Avenue permit parking lots should use the following route to reach their parking area: Turn right from Mansfield Boulevard to Chestnut Street; right onto East Main Street; left onto Washington Avenue; right onto Williams Way, an alley located behind East Main Street, which connects to Elk Avenue.

Residents of the Library Hill area should use Washington Avenue and turn either onto Christy Avenue or Capitol Drive. Normal parking and traffic patterns will resume on Monday.