Visiting The West Palm Beach Fine Art Show

This past Saturday afternoon I walked around the West Palm Beach Fine Art Show, which took place at Meyer Amphitheater in downtown West Palm Beach and seen in the photograph on the left. This was a modest little festival with 44 artists in attendance, featuring paintings, sculpture, glass, jewelry, photographs, wood, clay and other mediums. I noticed that a number of the participating artists were also at the Downtown Palm Beach Gardens Arts Festival, held a few weeks ago. That art festival, sponsored by Howard Allan Events, took place in Palm Beach Gardens due to West Palm Beach's CityPlace, its usual location, being unavailable due to construction. The art festival held this weekend at Meyer Amphitheater was sponsored by a non-profit called Hot Works - Institute for Arts and Education, no doubt filling the gap left by the Howard Allan Events show. And it was a very pleasant event to time at.

I have noticed that, at least in Denver, non-profits are usually more reliable sponsors of festivals than for-profit companies and municipalities. CherryArts has sponsored the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, one of the top art festivals in the country, for many years, and a few years ago took over the Denver Chalk Art Festival, making it into another major event. On the other hand, a non-profit in Denver called CHUN (Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods) sponsored the People's Fair in Denver's Civic Center Park each June for many years, but then decided to sell the rights to it to a for-profit company to get the money to buy a Victorian mansion for their headquarters. Seriously. They really did that. The for-profit company ran the festival for a year or two, and when it didn't turn a profit, ended it for good. And the City of Denver used to sponsor the Festival of Mountains and Plains over Labor Day Weekend for many decades. And then decided to split it into four separate, much smaller street festivals to be held over the summer, which of course was a big flop. That festival is now gone forever, too. And what is the lesson to be learned from all this? Festivals and art fairs are not supposed to make a profit or even break even, and when you try to make money from them, it usually never works out.