Creativity can strike at any moment, whether you're near a canvas and brushes or beside a slumbering strongman and many rolls of toilet paper. Learn to recognize opportune moments with today's Groupon: for $15, you get a four-day pass to the Utah Arts Festival (up to a $30 value). The festival takes place on June 23–26, 2011, from noon to 11 p.m. each day. Children aged 12 and younger are admitted for free.
Now in its 35th year, the Utah Arts Festival seeks to cultivate community creativity during a four-day artistic deluge. Attendees will find events to enjoy on one of the fest's five stages, featuring more than 90 music, dance, and literary shows, including performances by Ballet West. Hop into a hands-on activity such as the Create Your Own Comic Book workshop with Richard Jenkins. Throughout the weekend, the Prairie Dog Glass’s mobile glass-blowing studio will prowl the streets in search of apprentices to construct paperweights. Those who prefer nonimmersion art appreciation can take in directorial talent from a theater seat at the Utah Short Film of the Year contest on Thursday or can stroll the streets to take in the creations of 159 visual artists, strewn throughout the city like paint flecks on Jackson Pollock's favorite smock.
The Utah Arts Festival also offers a selection of edible art from culinary vendors, as well as an artists’ marketplace for purchasing carefully crafted artistic wares. The festival encourages earth-conscious art appreciation by taking part in recycling and offering free applause for all guests who choose to arrive on bicycles.
Utah Arts Festival
Visitors to the Utah Arts Festival stride across concrete promenades and grassy lawns sprawled out between fountains and modern buildings, which have glass walls that reflect the fest’s vibrant paintings and eclectic sculptures. Since its inception more than 40 years ago, the four-day festival has taken over a multiblock radius to accommodate 170+ visual artists, 100+ performing groups as well as program slates in literary arts, visual arts, kids activities, dance performances, musical commissions, street theater, art and technology, urban arts, film and culinary arts. Throughout indoor and outdoor exhibitions, visitors explore varied works of visual art represented through special exhibitions and hands-on workshops with featured artists. A marketplace also gives artists a place to sell their paintings, wearable art, and sculptures to help disseminate their crafts and raise enough money for van Gogh’s ghost to move out of their basements.
Families will love the children’s art yard, with hands-on activities and take-home projects just for kiddos. The Utah Arts Festival offers activities for kids of all ages, and kids ages 12 and under receive free festival admission.
Musicians score the festival throughout its days with worldwide genres on several outdoor stages, and storytellers and other literary artists tickle ears with eclectic tales and recitations of the UN staff directory. Across the grounds, festival staffers recycle the fete’s discarded plastic, aluminum, and cardboard as well as food scraps and vegetable oil, and promote eco-friendly practices with a protected bicycle lot and bike valet.