Liz Eilf is the publicity chairman for the upcoming Lehigh Spring Festival to be held in March of 2010.

While it may be four months away, the Lehigh Spring Festival Committee has swung into action in making preparations by naming the main entertainment group on the first Saturday of the nine-day festival.

Liz Eilf, who has become a member of the Spring Festival Committee this year, said the music will be great for both the young and older folks.

“We’re bringing in a group called Stayin’ Alive,” Eilf said.

Danny Stephenson, the entertainment chairman and emcee for most of the pageant happenings on stage, has confirmed that this group will perform on the first Saturday night of the festival, which will be March 20. They are out of Tampa.

Featuring the close, high harmonies of brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibbs, Saturday Night Fever – Stayin’ Alive creates an eerie sense of seeing the Bee Gees live in concert.

“They are a Bee Gees tribute band and they even look like the Bee Gees,” Eilf said. The performance will be free to the public. But to enter the park, there is a small parking fee which is divided up between the Soccer League and the Festival group.

The Spring Festival Committee, under the the direction of Ernie Hartman, will meet several times between December and February to make sure everything is in place and that the program is planned and the schedule of events is published.

“The group will be performing as usual on the outside pavilion stage and there will be seating set up although a lot of people bring their lawn chairs and blankets. Some years it has been cool on that first Saturday night of the Festival and other years, it has been mild.

The Spring Festival is celebrating more than three decades in Lehigh and was begun as a tribute to the snow birds who lived in Lehigh in the winter and planned to leave just after the Festival and after Easter.

The Festival will end on March 27, two weeks before Easter, which is celebrated on April 4, 2010.

Putting the Festival together takes a lot of time and it takes money and Festival board members will be asking the community again this year for financial help. Names of sponsors appear on a large board near the outside stage, in a location where most people enter the Festival grounds.

“We had some seed money to start us off this year, but we will need help to make it a success,” Eilf said.

“We still plan to have local groups performing on the stage, a large carnival with rides, many local food vendors, the Spring Festival Junior and Senior Idol contests, and much more,” Eilf said.

She noted that last year’s theme was country music, so they thought this year that the group that pays tribute to the Bee Gees would be ideal.

“And because they call themselves ‘Stayin’ Alive,’ we’ve decided that will also be the theme of the Festival Parade this year, which is planned by Andy Reisinger, who has been doing parade plans for several years.

“We have all felt the recession in Lehigh and our community continues to battle to stay alive … so we thought ‘Stayin’ Alive’ would be a fitting theme for the Festival and parade.

“Some have even suggested that on that first Saturday night, we might encourage people to come dressed like they did when the Bee Gees were so popular and karaoke music was very much in style,” Eilf said.

The group coming to Lehigh has toured the word with their singing act and have been seen by more than 100,000 people, according to promoters.

It’s a five-piece group with three singers in front and two in back.

“I can’t believe it, but they really do look like the Bee Gees,” Eilf said.

Their name ‘Stayin’ Alive’ comes from the Bee Gees’ Saturday Night Fever original movie soundtrack.

The Bee Gees were originally a singing trio of Gibbs brothers. They were successful for most of their 40 years of recording music. They were a success as a harmonic “soft rock” act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and as the foremost stars of the disco music era in the late 1970s.

Also during the Festival and prior to its starting, Lehigh Acres Community Services will be conducing its 2010 Honorary Mayor Contest. Although those who want to become the next honorary mayor can start now to raise money, the entry period begins after January 1. The 2009 honorary mayor is Marylou Land, who is famous because of her attire and straw hat. She shows up at many functions in Lehigh.

The honorary major competition is a major fund-raiser for Lehigh Community Services. The new honorary mayor is named on the last night of the Festival.