It’s been three years since the Park City Latino Arts Festival was at Park City’s Library Field. The last few years, the festival was held at small, dispersed locations. The festival was originally started and run by the Christian Center of Park City, but as Arts Council Executive Director Jocelyn Scudder explains, the festival founder has moved on and this seemed like a good fit for the Arts Council to take over.
“They’re [the Christian Center] a resource center,” Scudder said. “They do mental health, they do the food pantry, they don't do arts festivals. But they did it really well for many years since 2016. But when Max left, they approached us and said, you know, this might be a little off-mission for us long term - what is the future of this festival? And so, we spoke with our board at length because it's a big deal. I mean, it's thousands of dollars to put this thing on, right? It's no small program to take on as a nonprofit. But we were really careful in the consideration, and we decided we wanted to make sure that Latino arts stayed in our community.”
The festival officially kicks off Friday night and there are a number of lead-up events. On Tuesday at 7 p.m. it’s Noches de Verano, live music at City Park followed by Sundance Institute bringing back its outdoor film series at the park featuring “Going Varsity in Mariarchi,” a favorite from this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Jim Santy Auditorium, there's a free film screening of Pelé: Birth of a Legend.
Thursday evening, Summit Community Gardens presents Dinner in the Garden. It starts at 5 p.m. Tickets are $25 for children and $50 for adults. There will be Latino food, music and plenty of kid activities.
On Friday, Scudder said the art festival launches at its new location at the Canyons Village at 4 p.m.
“We have 26 visual artists who will be having booths out where they'll be exhibiting and selling their work,” Scudder explained. “And then a lot of nonprofit activations - Kimball Arts Center has come in to offer some kids activities and have some kid crafts and Connect Summit County is going to be doing a wellness tent and a pavilion tent with a lot of nonprofit partners. So, that all launches Friday, 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, it's an all-day affair 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Again, all day we have music, dance, visual art, food, and then Sunday, it'll be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Andrea Zavala serves as the Art Council’s Inclusion and Engagement coordinator. While festival attendance is free, she says 26 artists will have their work on display for sale, and there will be plenty of food to buy as well.
“We're going to have ink makers, ceramic, fiber arts, acrylic mix media, young artists, older artists like really authentic modern ones," Zavala said. "Hispanic food, authentic, original. We have Tina’s Empanadas. We have Sobe Eats, it's upscale Mexican, we have Inti coffee – he’s Peruvian. We have Nana's hot dogs - so Mexican hot dogs… it’s a mix of everything. I’m excited.”
Adult beverages will be available for purchase at the Umbrella Bar. There is also a great lineup of music.
“We have it from Peru, from Chile, from Ecuador from Bolivia, a mix of Latin America,” she said. “And then we were able to find musicians from Brazil. We have two bands from Brazil. We have one band from Chile. We have Rumba Libra, known band that it's always playing locally. We have Senxao rock group that it's going to be playing on Sunday closing the event. So, the music or it's also pretty fun. And yeah, it's going to be a good time.
Find a complete rundown of the festival here.