If last year’s numbers tell us anything, approximately 80,000 people will converge in Library Square this week to attend the 2019 Utah Arts Festival.
Ken Kullack, the festival’s marketing director, says the event evolves every year, and the 43rd edition of the festival will feature a variety of new activities that are unique from previous years.
“Almost half of the performers and artists are new this year,” he says.
In addition to the new talent, Kullack says the festival is partnering with KRCL, a public radio station in Salt Lake, to host an all-day event called Women Who Rock.
“Women Who Rock will essentially [be] featuring female artists. Whether it’s on the music stage, or the film series as well … and then also in the literary arts word fest, reciting poetry and storytelling,” he says. “We look at this is a great chance to promote all the local female artists in the community.”
SLCC’s own Community Writing Center will be hosting workshops at the festival. The center’s volunteer coordinator, Katherine Allred, says the CWC has been a part of the festival since 2007 and will have a wide variety of activities this year.
“We have a prize wheel, and some fun writing prompts [where we table] just outside of the center,” she says. “And inside the center, we’ve got some fun activities like making mini zines and making pop-up books. There’s a really cool series of workshops for writing and producing comic books.”
Apart from the scheduled events, the artist marketplace will house 170 artists and their creations, including jewelry making, mixed media, wearable art, ceramics, digital art, photography, graphics and printmaking, sculptures, metalwork and woodwork.
The 2019 Utah Arts Festival runs Thursday through Sunday. Festival hours are noon to 11 p.m. each day, with multiple events running every half hour. The event will be held at 200 E. 400 South in downtown Salt Lake City.
