Kingsport Cultural Arts announces new arts festival

The two-day event will showcase activities and demonstrations for the entire family

Kingsport Cultural Arts and Engage Kingsport are pleased to announce a new, two-day arts festival coming next month – one that aims to engage the entire community in the arts and encourage them to join in themselves.

The Kingsport Arts Festival will take place on April 19-20 in the vicinity of Market and Shelby streets in downtown Kingsport. The two-day festival kicks off on April 19 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. with a “Light up the Night” parade with giant puppets, paper lanterns and digital artwork projected onto downtown buildings.

Then on April 20 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the festival continues with a full day of family-friendly activities, including an iron pour, a glass blowing workshop, Raku firing, tie-dye making, an art gallery crawl and the launch of this year’s Sculpture Walk. Those who would like to participate in the iron pour, raku firing, and glassblowing can register at www.artskingsport.org.

Buskers will be performing along Market and Shelby streets during the festival on April 20. Suzuki Talent Education of Appalachia and the Kingsport Ballet will be performing, an art gallery crawl will take place along Market and Broad and children’s activities will be held throughout the day at Impressions Fine Art Gallery (246 Broad Street).

“We wanted to bring a different type of arts festival to downtown Kingsport this year, one that showcases creative techniques not typically found at other festivals,” said Kristie Leonard, special events and cultural arts manager. “We believe people will come away excited by what they saw demonstrated.”

The Kingsport Arts Festival is hosted by Kingsport Cultural Arts in partnership with Engage Kingsport. For more information about the festival or to volunteer during the event, please visit www.artskingsport.org. This project is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee, Tennessee Arts Commission.