I'm ready to officially declare Sept. 12 the most overloaded day of the Indy arts season.
For starters, there's the Penrod Art Fair, occupying the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art from 9-5.
Then there's Indianapolis Opera's new Operapalooza event at Basille Opera Center.
You'll also find opera represented at Conner Prairie's Spirit of the Prairie Awards gala, where Angela Brown will be joining four others in accepting honors.
Feeling overwhelmed? That's just the beginning.
Greek Fest, now relocated to Carmel, is also happening on the 12.
And the in-the-works Indianapolis City Ballet is hosting its "An Evening With the Stars" benefit featuring performers from the American Ballet Theatre, the Kirov Ballet, the New York City Ballet, and more at the Murat.
Meanwhile, Irvington is hosting the Gene Stratton-Porter Festival and it's opening weekend for the Eiteljorg's "Quest for the West" show (at least that continues into the following weeks). Plus there's X-Fest at Verizon Wireless Music Center and the Chinese American Festival at Military Park.
So is this overlap natural? An indication that Indy has a vibrant arts and culture community? Or a sign of poor planning?
Your thoughts? And which, if any, do you hope to attend?
For starters, there's the Penrod Art Fair, occupying the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art from 9-5.
Then there's Indianapolis Opera's new Operapalooza event at Basille Opera Center.
You'll also find opera represented at Conner Prairie's Spirit of the Prairie Awards gala, where Angela Brown will be joining four others in accepting honors.
Feeling overwhelmed? That's just the beginning.
Greek Fest, now relocated to Carmel, is also happening on the 12.
And the in-the-works Indianapolis City Ballet is hosting its "An Evening With the Stars" benefit featuring performers from the American Ballet Theatre, the Kirov Ballet, the New York City Ballet, and more at the Murat.
Meanwhile, Irvington is hosting the Gene Stratton-Porter Festival and it's opening weekend for the Eiteljorg's "Quest for the West" show (at least that continues into the following weeks). Plus there's X-Fest at Verizon Wireless Music Center and the Chinese American Festival at Military Park.
So is this overlap natural? An indication that Indy has a vibrant arts and culture community? Or a sign of poor planning?
Your thoughts? And which, if any, do you hope to attend?
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Then there's the following weekend, with Oranje, the Fiesta, Irish Fest, and Masterpiece in a Day all happening concurrently.
In Indy, September is to arts & culture as June is to weddings. Personally, I dig it.
There's a reason that weekends are two days long.
Seriously, it has been a while since I have heard anyone complain that there is nothing to do in Indy. You know why? Because there is so much to do.
It just seems to happen that way.
Unfortunately I'll be spending that Saturday at the football field.
Moving the entire event to September was attractive to Primary Colours a few years ago because we felt like we could tap into advanced art students at the start of the college school year. What we've discovered is that the whole month of September seems to be Art Month! On top of that, it seems to be wedding month as well, which occupies venues, like the Harrison, where we did Paint Day for years previous.
I've been advocating for a citywide universal event calendar where sports teams, civic organizations, charities, and the arts could all schedule around conflicts so that Indy isn't feast one weekend and famine the next. Also, as we have started setting dates earlier, we run into other events that are scheduled at the last minute, or who don't update their Web sites in a timely manner. (Yes, we have been guilty of this like everyone else.)
Currently, I don't know of a better solution other than observing what goes on the month you'd like to schedule an event, consulting various calendars (the Arts Council and the ICVA, for instance), and communicating with other organizations to negotiate around everyone else's events.
If only every month could be like September. Maybe we'd really, actually be that cultural Mecca we strive to be...
I work with the new Indianapolis City Ballet and in our extensive planning process we met with representatives of most of these organizations prior in late 2008 and early 2009 and shared our plans and dates and, when we set our event date and registered with the Arts Council, we were the only one on the schedule other than Penrod (since they end at 5PM, we thought we'd be OK. Let's move forward and see what happens!
ORG Magazine is now keeping an arts/events calendar - maybe that will help...