A view of Washington Square during the 2022 Utah Arts Festival, when temperatures were pleasantly in the high 80s.
Is climate change coming for the arts festivals?
Last year, after a $200,000 shortfall representing 10% of its overall budget, the Utah Arts Festival warned it might not survive. Attendance that year was down by 14,000 people. At the time, UAF Executive Director Aimee Dunsmore identified a few reasons for the almost 30% drop in expected attendance: held June 28-30, the festival bumped up against the July 4th holidays; it was also competing against several big concerts held that weekend. And, it was really hot.
The Utah Arts Festival, launched in 1977 and since 2003 hosted at Washington and Library Squares in downtown Salt Lake City, is held during the last full weekend of June, when temperatures are—usually—relatively pleasant. In 2022, the highs were in the mid 80s to low 90s. In 2023, the temps barely breached 90. But during the 2024 festival, temps flirted with and then embraced the triple digits. “We usually go every year,” wrote one Reddit commenter, “This year was our last. It needs to be pushed to a cooler month.”
The heat wasn’t the only complaint. Cost was also a problem. “Even small prints were going for $60 to $100+,” complained another Reddit commenter. “Original art was in the thousands. There’s a very, very small percentage of people that will drop that kind of cash at a festival.”
Though not touched on by festival organizers or attendees, the Utah Arts Festival is likely also struggling against a wider societal trend: people are going out less (see this article by The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson).
Despite last year’s blow, the Utah Arts Festival is returning this week for its 49th year. A major community donation as well as support from individuals helped make up the organization’s 2024 monetary shortfall, and public surveys since then have informed changes for 2025. The festival remains at Washington and Library Square, but the layout has expanded to incorporate more of the shade found around the City and County Building. A fourth day has been added on Thursday (a return to a pre-pandemic norm), with a discounted admission of $12. UAF has also invested in bigger headliners: Leftover Salmon, Robert Randolph, Souls of Mischief and MV Caldera will all perform. More than 300 visual artists will be featured, 85% of them from Utah, and new “demonstrating artists” will bring live artmaking to their booths. The festival is also introducing transparent pricing, including QR codes that reveal the $37 per-person true cost and invite donations.
While budget issues and programming tweaks are fixable, the festival can’t do much about the weather. They have moved the festival up a week, but even mid-June in Salt Lake City is no longer reliably pleasant. Weather fluctuates from year to year, and we could chalk up 2024 to a freak weather event—Salt Lake City experienced 20+ days in the triple digits last summer, more than double the average—but according to climate data, Utah is warming faster than the global average, hotter days are arriving earlier in the year, and 100°F spikes are becoming the norm, not the exception.
The festival has experienced hot weekends before: a decade ago, temps broke 100 degrees during the 2015 festival. Festival organizers might be able to set aside something each year in a scorcher-day fund, to offset a once-in-a-decade event. But that only works if the scorchers come once a decade.
For the second year in a row, temperatures during the festival are going to be hot. Very hot. Adding Thursday at the cheaper price of $12 might not help much if the temperatures are going to be, as predicted, a record-breaking 107. Friday, too, is expected to be in the triple digits: it might be cool enough when Robert Randolph hits the stage at 9:30 pm, but this year’s Mayor’s Artists Award recipients, who will be honored just before 6 pm, will want to dress minimally.
There is a glimmer of hope for the 2025 featival, however: in Utah’s bi-polar manner, temps are expected to drop drastically for Saturday and Sunday. You might even want a light sweater if you plan on ushering out the festival with MV Caldera Sunday evening.
Dealing with an increasingly erratic climate is now part of the job description for any festival director. Across the U.S., climate change is pushing arts and music festivals to cancel, relocate and reformat. Alexandria, Virginia canceled its arts festival last year due to heat. The Harlem Festival of Culture did the same in 2023. This year’s Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee has been canceled (though for excessive rain rather than heat—but as should be common knowledge by now, that’s part of climate change as well.)
In a future world wracked by unmitigated climate change, the disappearance of arts festivals would not rank among the top of humanity’s woes. But still, they would be missed.
Read all about the 2025 Utah Arts Festival and get a full schedule of events at https://www.uaf.org.
The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.
Categories: Public Issues | Visual Arts
I just heard about Trump’s latest plan to encourage Americans to have more children (!) . . . which has two parts: a payment of $5,000 per child to each family that has a child, along with increased access to IVF. How much of the expense of having and raising a child will $5,000 cover?
The last time I remember Americans in large numbers saying they wouldn’t bring a child into this world was during the ’60s, when we were at war with Vietnam and there were demonstrations and riots in the street over racial injustice. And no, that’s not a typographical error referring to Iran and the Southern Border. But as for Trump’s need to encourage children, he might begin by no longer denying climate change and refunding the Education Department, childhood vaccinations, and health care for the elderly so their children can even think about having children of their own.