The 2018 Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival will become a three-day event, opening on Friday, from 10am-5pm, and thereby provide access to an entirely NEW buying audience: the approximately 10,000-person workforce in the Town Center!
It is an audience we have not truly reached in the past (we used to open on Friday night, but by then the workforce had already left). Making the very significant logistical investment in a Friday opening provides A NEW, BUILT-IN, AFFLUENT BUYING AUDIENCE looking for world-class art for their offices, homes, for gifts, and more. It reflects our relentless focus on investing to grow our audience (and we typically draw tens of thousands of visitors already) and driving sales, explaining why ArtFairCalendar.com has described this as a festival where "the 'art stars' of the outdoor art fairs vie for spaces."
Added bonus: we will now move our Festival Party, to Saturday night (7-9:30pm) and use it to announce our Artist Awards ($500 cash prize for our ten awardees, a blue ribbon to display at their booths, and automatic acceptance into next year's Festival). By making the Artist Awards the focus of the evening (something we could not do when opening on Saturday; not enough time for judging of booths), we will shine an even brighter spotlight on our participating artists and your work. As always, our artists and their plus-ones are our party guests, FREE, another of our nationally renowned artist amenities.
These major changes will make the 2018 Festival bigger and better than ever! Artists applications for juror review are required by Sunday, December 10, through the Juried Art Services website. http://www.juriedartservices.com/index.php?content=event_info&event_id=1319
Artist set up will be on Thursday during the day and Festival operating hours will be 10am - 5pm Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Garage parking will be free all three days.
The Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival is the Greater Reston Art Center's (GRACE's) largest annual fundraiser. www.restonarts.org
