Coming up Labor Day weekend is Art in the Pearl in Portland, OR. This show originated in 1997 after the demise of the big deal, big sponsor, Artquake. Artquake relied heavily on corporate sponsorship and drew 200,000 people to the Pearl neighborhood where it was envisioned as "a massive ticketed spectacle that featured international performances alongside local jugglers and mimes."
The money did not materialize to sustain Artquake (we're talking 100's of 1000's of dollars to support an event like this), so it folded in 1996. Bob Hicks reported in The Oregonian at that time:
If the city needs an arts festival at all, it needs one that blends the local with the national and international – one that both showcases and challenges Oregon's artists," he suggested. "For an arts festival to succeed here, it needs either a sharp focus or the kind of broad support that Artquake has never had."
What happened next:
But while discussion raged on, a group of 17 artists, long disenfranchised with the direction of Artquake, was gathering to craft the Portland arts festival they always wanted – one that focused solely on Portland art.What then did materialize was a grass-roots event led by local artists.
The result, folks, is a well loved event "owned by the locals" and frequently cited as an artist's favorite show (as cited in this video we published in June).
Here's an article that details the story: http://www.oregonlive.com/events/index.ssf/2014/08/how_portlands_anti-corporate_pro-local_festival_de.html
I hope a bunch of art festival folks will read it and learn the lessons they learned in Portland.
