Art in the Park is calling it a day after 29 years in Galesburg.
The Galesburg Civics Arts Center announced the cancellation today of the event citing declining attendance from both artists and audiences.
As for audience attendees, Arts Center Executive Director Tuesday Cetin tells WGIL that she’s not sure why numbers began to drop.
“Of course when you don’t have attendees and the volume of attendees, you tend to have lower sales and that affects our artists and that affects their participation in future years” Cetin says. “It is sort of a vicious cycle where you have to have audience and attendees but you also have to have artists and an ecosystem that works quite well together.”
Art in the Park once pulled in close to 70 artists but in recent years that number is closer to 40. The Art Center will now evaluate how they can better engage the community and serve local artists.
She says Art in the Park is just one of many nearby art festivals that have recently fallen victim to low participation.
Last month, the Rhapsody in Bloom Arts Festival in Peoria was cancelled because not of enough artists signed up.
Art in the Park was usually held in September, the last few years coinciding with the Stearman Fly-In.
