What's Festival?
A FREE community showcase of the arts!
- Visual arts
- Performing arts
- Culinary arts
A feast for all the senses!
- SEE the work of West Michigan's finest artists
- HEAR the area's bands, choirs, rock, folk, country, blues - the works!
- TASTE and SMELL the offerings from food booths operated by area churches and nonprofit organizations
- TOUCH art in the making at Festival's many creative activities
A community-wide celebration!
- Downtown Grand Rapids the first full weekend in June
- Made possible with support from the City of Grand Rapids, the Kent County Board of Commissioners, and the Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids
The arts come alive at Festival!
- Music: jazz, rock, techno, folk, classical, and more
- Symphonies & such
- Poetry
- Dance
- Theatre arts
- Storytelling
- Music for kids
- Improv
- Visual art
- Juried exhibitions
- Arts and crafts for sale
Things to do (artistically-speaking) at Festival - all FREE!
- Paint In (for Kids & Adults!)
- Mad Hatter
- diSuvero Swing
- Chalk the Walk
- Face Painting
- Swing-n-Art
- Adult Involvement
For you history buffs out there...
Back in 1969, when the Calder stabile—the big red steel artwork in front of City Hall in downtown Grand Rapids—was first installed, people started thinking, "hey, we need an art festival to celebrate Alexander Calder's work. More importantly, we need an arts festival to celebrate the arts in West Michigan."
So, in 1970, Festival was born: A three-day arts celebration, then sponsored by the Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids, and held the first full weekend in June in downtown Grand Rapids. That first Festival was held right on Calder Plaza—no streets were closed, because there were only two stages and a few food booths.
From there, Festival has grown to be its own nonprofit organization, encompassing almost all of downtown Grand Rapids with six performance stages; lots and lots of food booths offering ethnic delights of all kinds; singers, dancers, thespians, visual artists, and performers from all over West Michigan; more than 20,000 hard-working volunteers; and over half a million people in attendance.
Festival is the largest all-volunteer arts event in the nation!