Celebrating its 22nd year, Main St. Fort Worth Arts Festival (Main St.) is a free four-day event, April 19–22, 2007, showcasing an eclectic blend of art and music in a true outdoor festival setting. The theme of this year’s event is “Art in Bloom”.
Produced by Downtown Fort Worth Initiatives, Inc. – a nonprofit organization whose mission is to assist in making downtown Fort Worth a vibrant, healthy and attractive center – Main St. is listed among the “Top 10” juried arts and crafts fairs in the nation in the 2006 editions of both The Harris List and Art Fair Source Book, the publications of record for the art festival industry.
This year organizers of Main St. have expanded the emerging artists program, which gives up-and-coming artists the opportunity to exhibit and sell their artwork for the first time. Main St. will highlight 11 artists who were selected to be featured. The festival has also added a film festival and several youth programs this year, including the Chesapeake Energy-sponsored Art on Tour Collection and the Young People’s Art Fair presented by XTO Energy. The Art on Tour Collection is a touring exhibit of art that will be collected and maintained by Fort Worth ISD art students, and the Young People’s Art Fair will give children between the ages of 7 and 17 the opportunity to sell their artworks during the festival. Festival organizers have also added the Fearless Film Festival to this year’s slate of activities. The festival is welcome to applicants from all film genres. Main St. and the Lone Star Film Society have collaborated to start the film festival, which is sponsored by the Fort Worth Public Library’s downtown branch and the Fort Worth Library Foundation.
The “Greening” of the Festival
In keeping with this year’s “Art in Bloom” theme, Main St. is taking further initiatives to make the event more environmentally positive by instituting several new “green” policies and programs aimed at reducing the amount of waste generated.
One new measure is the use of specially marked containers for attendees to recycle cans and bottles. “We hope to recycle 100 percent of the bottles and cans left behind at the festival,” said Jay Downie, CFEE, producer of the festival.
Another environmentally friendly project that is new to this year’s festival is a bicycle corral that will be free of charge to those who choose to ride their bicycles to the festival. The corral is sponsored by the Fort Worth Bicycling Association and Bicycles, Inc. and is designed to get patrons thinking about alternative transportation methods and utilizing Fort Worth’s network of bike trails. The corral will be operated from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily during the festival by Bicycles Inc. at the parking lot on 4th Street east of the Houston Street intersection and will be fenced in and staffed by cycling enthusiasts. There will be bike racks for storage and an ID system to avoid theft.
Also included in the greening of the festival is the use of biodegradable eating utensils and PLA-manufactured cups. “To further lessen our use of public landfills, we will be utilizing biodegradable plates and eating utensils beginning with the 2007 festival,” says Downie. “The costs are not much higher than paper products; however, the benefits definitely outweigh the additional expense when you think of the abbreviated lifecycle of these items in our landfills, breaking down completely in as little as 45 days.”
Festival staff will also recycle all oil and grease used to prepare the food, and many festival artists also “recycle” found objects into high-quality art, and give new life to items that otherwise could have ended up in a landfill. Dick Cooley, a Wisconsin sculptor who says he had his best sales ever at last year’s Main St. and will be exhibiting again at the 2007 event, creates his artworks from “what most people call junk.”
Downie says he hopes these initiatives will help raise awareness of environmental issues and conservation as well as set an example for other events and businesses in the area.
“It’s important that we, as the hosts of the largest arts festival in Texas, do our part to protect our environment,” said Downie. “These measures provide opportunities to be as socially responsible as we can be while providing the cultural experience of combining art and entertainment to more than 400,000 people.”
What: Main St. Fort Worth Arts Festival
When: April 19-22, 2007
Where: Downtown Fort Worth
Admission: FREE
