SALT LAKE CITY — The future of the Utah Arts Festival is in jeopardy due to a financial shortfall since this year’s event.
For 48 years, the Utah Arts Festival has been a place for artists from all over to showcase their work. But even though this year felt successful, the numbers told a different story.
“We are short the money that we need to pay the remaining vendors, and that’s important to us,” said Aimee Dunsmore, executive director of the Utah Arts Festival.
They are trying to raise $200,000 to cover costs after low attendance at the festival this year, which was held at the end of June.
“Some of the reasons, maybe it was a little later in the month this year than it has been; people expected us to be the 3rd weekend. That put us a little bit closer to the 4th of July holiday. It was very hot,” explained Dunsmore. “And there were also a couple of major concerts happened which definitely wouldn’t have gotten us to our whole goal of attendance, but certainly we think detracted a little bit from our event that Saturday night.”
The goal for attendance was 50,000 people. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, they had at least 60,000 people attend. This year, they had an estimated 36,000 people.
“I think not having the Utah Arts Festival does impact people financially,” said Dunsmore. “It’s a place where some of our performing artists got their start and have gone on to bigger and better things, as well as visual artists.”
Because of their current financial situation, the Utah Arts Festival has also canceled its Art Tour, which is a way to take people behind the scenes of making art and give more artists a chance to share their work.
“I hope that we can make a resurgence with it. I see it as a fundamental project for the community,” said Sarinda Jones with Reflective Art Studio.
The Utah Arts Festival has played an important role in Sarinda Jones’ journey. Among her many artistic talents, one of them is glass art. She is an art educator as well.
“They gave me my first big real show here locally, so that strategic partnership introduced me to people in the community,” said Jones.
She hopes this isn’t the end of the Utah Arts Festival.
“Not only the income that you get from the festival over those three days, but it’s also marketing,” Jones said. “I’m a business person as much as I am an artist. So when you don’t have those connections and you don’t have those strategic partnerships, I can’t even put a number or a loss on it.”
You can learn more about the festival’s financial situation and donate HERE, share feedback about the festival and things that can help improve HERE, or sign up to help HERE.
