Arts Activities Support

The Powderhorn Art Fair facilitated two core outcomes within the community. These connect directly to maintaining a vibrant and relevant arts experience in South Minneapolis; by driving $500,000 of economic impact across artists, local businesses and Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association. The art fair also has become a meaningful tradition for 16,000 local residents by providing an award winning and holistic arts experience. The four artistic goals of the 25th Anniversary Annual Powderhorn Art Fair were achieved through the collaborative partnership of the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. Each year, goal attainment is driven from having a well-documented plan, appropriate monetary and staffing resources and the cultivated ability to attract a broad and diverse group of multi-disciplinary artists to an award winning art fair. Convening a cadre of high quality visual and performing artists was facilitated by promoting the opportunity across various local and national artist networks. The compilation of fine artists across various stages of their careers also results from the fair’s juried process; which requires the digital submission of portfolio samples that are reviewed by an independent jury. This year’s artist outreach drew 437 applicants from which 229 artists were selected as a Main Exhibitor, Group Exhibitor, or Community Showcase artist. Given that the Powderhorn Art Fair is overseen by Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, organizations that strive to positively shape the Minneapolis community, another core goal involved ensuring a prevalent number of artists came from the community. In this regard, over 100 of artist applicants came from Minneapolis resulting in 35% of the artists in this year’s fair being Minneapolis residents. Although this year’s local artists’ penetration achieved the goal; there is an opportunity to deepen this penetration in a hyper-local way by increasing the number of artists’ participants from within South East Minneapolis. This will necessitate a reconfiguration of promotional and outreach resources to shift this penetration by at least five percentage points next year. Additionally, the ability for fair attendees to experience and engage with art and artists through numerous means was also attained. This was achieved by continuing partnerships with several local arts institutions including; Articulture, Steven Be, Open Eye Figure Theatre and Pillsbury House Theatre. The activities spanned knitting tutorials, a poem mobile and puppet shows. These artistic partnerships add to the overall dimension of the art fair and provides a clear roadmap and precedent for how to increase participant inclusivity in an event that attracts approximately 18,000 persons. The art fair’s economic contributions positively and directly impact over 220 artists, dozens of local businesses and both Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association and Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. Based on artist survey input regarding fair sales, artists average approximately $1,250; which represents an estimated $275,000 among artist alone. This coupled with income collected by Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association and the estimated uptick in sales for local businesses; the fair continues to drive roughly $500,000 in economic vitality. The Annual Powderhorn Art Fair continues to achieve its artistic goals; which inspires Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association and Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to enhance how it brings local artists and community together through the fair. The 25th Anniversary Powderhorn Art Fair successfully reached the stakeholders it sought to attract. This was achieved by following a multi-faceted promotions and outreach campaign that shaped all key phases of planning and coordination. The resources deployed to ensure the overall success of engaging and connecting with diverse artists, attendees and community partners relied heavily on adhering closely to the year-long planning schedule. During the first several months of event coordination, the majority of resources were aimed at reaching out to diverse artists’ networks. The strength of the Powderhorn Art Fair brand among local and national artists results from seamless execution year-over-year and the extremely picturesque setting of Powderhorn Park where the event is held. These factors, in addition to the tremendous opportunity to showcase and earn income from one’s art, are the central factors surrounding why 437 artists submitted applications for only 229 available slots. These insights were confirmed from artist’s survey input; collected from over 20% of participating artists. The fair’s location and overall organization received the highest rating of ‘Excellent’ by 92% and 83% of respondents. As in year’s past, fair attendees are estimated to have exceeded 16,000 participants; which based on the demographics of the surrounding community likely garnered participation from 12,000 adults and 4,000 youth. The event’s annual community popularity is viewed extremely positively. From survey data collected from attendees, nearly 74% indicated that they knew about the event because of word-of-mouth or as a result of it being a yearly tradition for them and their families. Participants are also attracted to the event as a result of external promotional and outreach efforts that included paid advertisements in local print and online mediums and flyer, poster and program drops throughout the South East Minneapolis community in English and Spanish languages. The artist diversity at this year’s fair also attained the goals that were set; which resulted in over 50% of the Group Exhibitors representing culturally diverse groups and organizations. These arts groups represent populations who serve adults in transition from homelessness, at-risk-youth and weavers from the regionally renowned Somali Museum are a few examples of the collective diversity of artists present. In an effort to achieve its overall event accessibility goals; the event remained free of any monetary expense to attend, it maintains low artist entrant fees in comparison to similar events of its size, increased its number of ADA compliant portable toilets, provided set-up assistance for showing artists with disabilities and continued to partner with park staff to ensure accessible seating areas for attendees. The overall success of this year’s event can certainly be viewed through attaining its goals surrounding the communities the art fair sought to attract and serve.