The Kimball Arts Festival is next week. To mark its 50th year of existence, it’s offering free admission to full-time residents of Summit County.
Kimball Arts Marketing and Communications Director Amy Roberts said that rather than just allow free admission on Friday, as they’ve done in the past, locals can get in for all three days of the event, August 2nd to the 4th. She said you should register online before 4 p.m. that Friday.
The bad news is that second-home residents can’t get the free admission, unlike previous years where they showed up on Friday with a utility bill.
Roberts said that locals can check in at the Art Center, any time during regular hours.
“So, you go on there, you register, you get your ID, you get your wristband, at Kimball Art Center in advance,” Roberts contniued. “For the second-home owners that do show up, we went through this process—our goal is to free the Fest for everyone. We need a little more sponsorship money to do that next year. We’re hoping to. But in the meantime, this year, what we looked at is most of the second-home owners who did take advantage of that Friday night, over 80 percent of them actually came back throughout the weekend and paid to get in. So, we really looked at that and thought, asking for $12 on Saturday, versus on Friday night probably isn’t going to break a lot of people. Our intent is not to exclude anyone. We recognize that the second-home owners are a vital part of our community and certainly participate in the non-profit organizations here just as much as our local community. We really just listened to the cries of the local community and had to balance it with our budget and our fundraising initiatives.”
She said they can offer the free admission thanks to the financial support of their sponsors, the Park City Hospital, Promontory Club, Deer Valley Resort, Zions Bank and Strong Auto.
Among other attractions, she said that a free exhibit is on display at the Rockwell Room, at 268 Main Street, looking at the Arts Festival through the ages.
“As I mentioned, this is our Golden Anniversary,” Roberts explained. “Some of the photos we found through the Park City Museum and different historical sites are hysterical. They are people in their bell-bottoms, hanging out of a window with broken glass with their popsicle art stick you know kind of selling that. So, it’s really fun. And it’s rewarding to see how the festival has truly evolved and gone from this like almost this Pop-Up type of spontaneous art festival to really a legitimate, award-winning nationally-recognized arts festival.”
The Room will also host an exhibit on the Park City Hospital, to mark its 10-year anniversary.
On that Sunday, the space also will have an event called “Brushes and Brunch.” For $75, you can dine with artists who won Best of Show at last year’s Festival.
Also, for the first time in recent years, they’re selling a VIP pass. The pass for $150, is good for all three days and will get you into the Kimball Terrace (the new building located at the Art Center’s old spot on Heber Avenue.) At the Terrace, there’s food and beverages, a great view of Main Street and also room to store your art purchases.
Finally, Roberts said the Terrace will host the opening Gala on Thursday night at 6 p.m. with a variety of live auction items. As of late last week, they had about 30 tickets left.
