GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- On Wednesday, ArtPrize 2.0 announced several activities that will kick off this year's festival next month.
The event's marketing manager, Pedro Camargo, spoke about it Thursday on West Michigan's Morning News. He told WOOD Radio organizers are putting a lot of effort into the festivities around the annual art competition.
"For our opening celebration this year we are going all out," he said. "So, for Ah-Nab-Awen Park, we're going to completely transform it into a multi-sensory feast, with games, food trucks, art installations, fireworks and a performance by Squonk (Opera). They're going to be doing their world premier of a new show titled Brouhaha.
That will be along Monroe Avenue.
There will be an ArtPrize Oasis set up by the Grand River.
"This is going to be a really awesome space," Camargo said. "We're going to re-envision the concrete park with a full, different, slew of games, relaxing seating, and art installations. There's going to be a turf there. We're thinking about maybe ... a soccer game. It's going to be a fun space for the family to come down and kind of activate that North Monroe Business District.
ArtPrize also intends to reactivate the site at 2 W. Fulton St. with a clubhouse. That is the former UICA building near Division Avenue. The clubhouse will feature art pieces and serve as a central gathering space for visitors and artists to access merchandise and customer support.
There also will be a suite of educational programming from ArtPrize partner Cultivate.
A Merchants and Makers Artisan Market during the second weekend of ArtPrize will include live music and vendors. Camargo said it will be about four times larger than last year's market, with more than 80 local artisan vendors.
The competition also will revert to the former public grand-prize format that was popular when the event began 14 years ago.
"The top winner is going to take home $125,000 this year. Second place is $50,000. Third place is $25,000. And we're also giving away $125,000 for a jury-decided category that's coming back, as well as an additional $75,000 for our Visibility Award.
ArtPrize will run through October 1st.
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