The economy seems to be painting a darkening picture as artists from across the U.S. arrive this weekend for the Park City Kimball Arts Festival.
People involved in the festival hope the crowds are not jittery after the convulsions on Wall Street last week.
The festival, held on Main Street annually and long regarded as perhaps the state’s best marketplace for art, arrives this year with its mix of painters, sculptors, photographers and other types of artists. Some of the largest three-day crowds of the year are expected to peruse the works, many just to look but some ready to buy.
“I feel good about what I have to offer. It doesn’t serve me to go in with a pessimistic view,” said Jan Perkins, an Oakley-based oil painter whose works depict Park City scenes, rural settings and wildlife.
Perkins has been selected for the festival three or four times, most recently nearly a decade ago, she said. Sales were solid each time, Perkins said. She said she is optimistic about sales over the weekend.
Another person from the area selected to have a booth over the weekend, Park City-based photographer Rick Pieros, has appeared at the last two art festivals, recalling that sales last year were good He said he expects his numbers will climb from 2010. He said sales remained solid during recent appearances at art festivals in Salt Lake City and Jackson, Wyo., amid what he calls “negative background music.”
“Headlines every day for the past two weeks have been debt ceiling, the United States is broke,” said Pieros, whose subject matter includes historic landmarks in Park City and pieces of Americana.
The arts festival remains one of the top special events on the Park City calendar, drawing nearly 50,000 people to Main Street in 2010. Research conducted in 2010 found the festival put an additional $10.6 million into the Park City economy. The amount of money people spent at the festival itself — including art purchases, concession sales and admission fees — was the top category of spending, the Kimball has said.
There are wide-ranging prices at the festival each year. Smaller items might be less than $100, but the larger pieces push into the thousands of dollars. Some of the artists are part of a festival circuit, traveling to events weekend after weekend during the summer.
Sales figures from the Utah Arts Festival in Salt Lake City in June were not available, but organizers indicated attendance more than 89,000 — was up more than 10 percent this year from 2010. The organizers said the attendance this year was the best ever for the festival.
Sales at art festivals nationwide have been mixed this summer, a 30-year industry figure said. Howard Alan, whose Florida-based firm puts on 45 art shows each year, drawing approximately 2.5 million people combined, said the artists who have appeared at the shows are selling really well or really poorly.
“Either they’re doing great or they’re doing terrible. The in-between is gone,” Alan said.
Alan’s firm produced the Redstone Art Fair in the Snyderville Basin last weekend, reporting afterward that sales were in line with last year’s inaugural fair. Attendance fell this year, though. Alan said traffic backups caused by the nearby installation of a pedestrian-bicyclist tunnel underneath S.R. 224 likely caused the attendance drop.
Alan predicted this weekend’s festival on Main Street will enjoy solid numbers. He said the art buyers have been reluctant to make other sorts of purchases in the years since the onset of the recession. But even though they might not be spending money on pricey cars or vacations, they continue buying art, he said.
“We’re having a better year this year than last year,” he said. “Which tells me people are sick of holding back.”