The normal time for the Downtown Edmond Business Association sponsored Arts Festival came and went in 2020, but the Arts Festival did not happen.
Instead, the world spent the first weekend of May in lockdown, effectively canceling the event that had been going strong in the Edmond community since 1978.
That won’t stop the festival from happening in 2021, albeit at a different time of the year. On Sept. 10-12, the DEBA Arts Festival kicks off its 43rd event. Stephanie Carel, the Executive Director of the DEBA, said the festival focuses primarily on the artists from across the country who will be showcasing their work.
Carel also said there will be 140 artists, from 12 states, in attendance. There will also be plenty of things for children to enjoy besides the artwork.
“We’re going to have an exotic animal show as one of the activities,” Carel said. “We’re also going to have huge game pieces, like Jenga, giant chess, a giant Connect 4, things like that for them to do.”
The three-day event will have appearances from superheroes and princesses, which have been a big hit in the past events.
Although that is fun, the most exciting part of the festival, for Carel, is meeting the artists and visitors coming for the festival.
“I think it’s the people who come to the events,” Carel said. “We get to meet artists from all over the country, and a lot of those people become favorites to the visitors of downtown Edmond.”
Carel said she has been associated with the DEBA Arts Festival for 18 years. In that time, the event has changed in size with the increasing amount of interest. This year’s festival will be slightly different in its changes.
“I feel like we’ve grown quite a bit,” Carel said. “This year’s going to be a little bit different than years in the past. We have a new layout to help with social distancing, that kind of stuff. We also have sanitizing stations which we’ve never had to have before.”
Co-chairperson of the event, Michelle Schaefer, explained that there will be changes to the layout of the event, including revisions to the artists booths, to help break up the crowd flow to help with socially distancing.
Another benefit of the changes is more visibility to the local businesses on Broadway. Proceeds from the event will go to helping the downtown merchants for the marketing that showcases the businesses in Edmond’s downtown area.
“I just love the public support,” Schaefer said. “It is one of the major events in the year that people are looking forward to. So, I just love the community support and I also love the support from our sponsors.”