Zion Canyon Art and Flute Festival<\/a>\u00a0in Springdale, Utah, just outside of Zion\u2019s Park, is for you. Two and a half days each fall are devoted solely to mingling with other \u201cflutees,\u201d exchanging tips, stories, songs, and spit.<\/p>\nOn the other hand, if you are looking to visit or participate in an arts festival in Southern Utah, don\u2019t be fooled by the title of this festival. With the name \u201cZion Canyon Art and Flute Festival\u201d one might think that art has top billing, or at least that art might be part of the festival. On the contrary, art has little or no billing at this event. It is not clear why the organizers use the term in their title or invite anyone other than flute vendors to participate. Artists and crafters are invited to this festival with the promise of large crowds and the organizers\u2019 interest in promoting the artists; but the festival is all about flutes. Which is great, but the festival should be named \u201cZion Canyon Flute Festival.\u201d It is a disservice to those vendors who have spent their time and money on booth spaces, gasoline, expensive lodging and restaurants, only to have the event organized such that for the most part all potential \u201ccustomers\u201d are attending flute concert \u201ctapings\u201d and workshops in a building 300 yards from the booth area. As a result, most vendors I spoke to did not sell enough to pay for their booth space.<\/p>\n
Further, of a boasted 50-plus booths there was one food vendor, one photographer, 2 painters, a potter, 2 jewelers, a wood-maker and a tie-dyer\u2014the rest of the booths were selling flutes and flute paraphernalia or drums. In a town where art galleries are everywhere you turn, it seems odd that artists must be coerced to attend this event and then treated as if they didn\u2019t show up. I was told by one local gallery manager that they represent over 80 artists. Why aren\u2019t those artists participating in the festival? Why aren\u2019t local gallery owners participating? Because they already know it is a flute festival?<\/p>\n
Artist vendors at the festival, including myself, were frustrated with multiple facets of the festival, including poor organization. Statements made in the rules for vendors were never carried out. Festival times were different than appeared on their website and changed daily and with every official. Booth spaces were \u201cfirst come first serve\u201d rather than assigned. There was no vendor parking and loading\/unloading was a \u201cpack it in\/pack it out\u201d ordeal as no vehicles were allowed on the field (contrary to online vendor information). The \u201cvendor packet\u201d never materialized. Tax information arrived for most people on the afternoon of the last day, so there was confusion about the tax rate. Advertising consisted of a couple of banners on telephone poles and a sign at the end of town. The festival was hidden half a mile off the main road on a ball field behind the parking lot of two new city buildings and indicated by one small sign and an arrow which read only \u201cFestival.\u201d The fact that it rained for most of the day on Saturday of the festival only made things worse, but even with the sunshine, no customers materialized. Since this was the second year of the event, hopefully the organizers will work through some of the problems for future festivals.<\/p>\n
If you receive an invitation to participate next October in the 2007 \u201cZion Art and Flute Festival,\u201d remember that it is really a flute festival. And it is a great flute festival, highlighting Native American flute styles. If you would like to visit the area to take advantage of the park and the plentiful art galleries, especially at this time of year when tourist levels are low, you won\u2019t be sorry, as it is a great trip at about 4 hours from Salt Lake, 3 from Las Vegas and 1 from St. George. If you are an artist and specialize in Southwestern art, you might bring some samples of your work along to show to the local galleries.<\/p>\n
To comment on this article or on another venue, go to the\u00a0Venue Vybe\u00a0in our Forums section.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Artists of Utah has been developing so quickly over that past two years that there may be many features to our website that some readers\/surfers are still unaware of. One of these is the Venue Vybe, located in our forums section, which invites artists to post their comments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1550,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alternative-venues","category-visual_arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 15:52:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1550"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56819"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72222,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56819\/revisions\/72222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}