Coming up on our 57th year in 2023, the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts is one of the top-ranked juried art fairs in the country, the highlight of the State College summer, one of the biggest non-football alumni weekends for Penn Staters, the summer’s economic anchor for downtown businesses, and the place to be for art, music, and fun the week after Independence Day. For many of the 85,000+ visitors each year, the Arts Festival is an enduring tradition, experienced with friends and family, and not to be missed.
As a not-for-profit community service organization, the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, Inc. depends on business sponsorship, community philanthropy, and individual donors to pay for a sizeable portion of the event’s budget. There are no general admission fees—in fact festival-goers can easily enjoy almost everything there is to see and do without spending a dime, if they choose. They are not obligated to pay anything to offset the cost of the Festival.
They do spend money in other ways. And the local bars, restaurants, hotels, and businesses are quite thankful. So are the hundreds of juried artists who come to show and to sell to our art-loving audience.