Blog

July 10-13

Downtown State College & Penn State Campus

305 exhibitors

Deadline: January 24

Why should you apply to this festival?  Here is what its director, Rick Bryant, has to say:

Our festival, known to artists as "the Penn State show", and to Penn Staters as the "Arts Fest", is now in its 48th year on the University Park campus of Penn State and the streets of downtown State College, PA.  We were founded by the State College Chamber of Commerce and Penn State's College of Arts and Architecture and we're still very much a "town/gown" event.

We bring roughly 100,000 people to State College over five days of our event in July. That's not a number we make up; we do an audience survey each year administered by a faculty member at Lock Haven University.

Going to the Arts Festival is a rite of passage for Penn Staters. Students don't miss it and Alumni return for "Arts Festival Alumni Weekend," a program of the Penn State Alumni Association, the largest dues paying alumni association in the world.  Arts Festival Alumni Weekend is a time to renew old college ties, attend special programs, and, of course, shop at the "Arts Fest". Some alums even opt to stay in dorms!  (Artists can do that too!)

• We're consistently ranked in the Top Ten in the Sunshine Artist magazine rankings (#1 last time around!)
• We hand out over $17,000 in prizes. The top prize is $2,500; our second prize is $1,750.
• We provide lots of amenities including one of the best artists' receptions on the circuit. 
• In a recent survey by ArtFairCalendar.com art fair patrons chose us as one of the nation's Best Art Fairs that they love to attend.  

The event also includes a full day of activities for children, great performances on indoor, a book festival, and a celebration of Italian Street Painting. And if you're up for it, there's a 5k/10k/10 mile run bright and early Sunday morning with over 500 entrants.

Notification is March 17