PROVIDENCE – Mayor Brett P. Smiley announced Wednesday that PVDFest, the free annual outdoor arts festival, will be held Sept. 8-10.
Billed as the city’s “signature arts festival” celebrating Providence’s artistic, cultural and culinary communities, the event includes live music, dance, food and visual art installations.
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“PVDFest is the moment where we as a community celebrate all the creativity, uniqueness, and diversity that lives here in the Creative Capital,” Smiley said in a Wednesday statement.
PVDFest was held last year in June for the first time since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. Held annually in June, the reasons for it being moved to September were not mentioned in the statement. Representatives from the mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond for comment.
Since 2015, the annual festival has brought in 596,000 attendees, according to the city, featuring more than 4,800 artists, performers and curators.
Director of the Department of Art, Culture & Tourism Joe Wilson Jr. added that PVDFest promotes the city’s “collective vision” as a “global destination for the arts, where all our neighbors celebrate diverse cultures and artistic experiences.”
Wilson Jr. is currently a member of the Resident Acting Company and artistic staff at Trinity Repertory Company and serves as Trinity’s coordinator of activism through performance.
Artists, performers, vendors and volunteers interested in participating can now visit the city’s website to access application forms. Applicants will be contacted when festival planning gets underway, according to the mayor’s office.
The inaugural Providence International Arts Festival was held in June 2015, co-produced by the Providence-based nonprofit FirstWorks. In both 2016 and 2017, PVDFest had more than 75,000 attendees and contributed $2.6 million in economic impact, eventually growing to 115,000 attendees and $3 million in total expenditures in 2022.
While FirstWorks has won the bid award from the city to run festival operations in previous years, according to Smiley spokesperson Patricia Socarras, the bid for a 2023 vendor has not yet been awarded.
(Update: Adds festival returned for first time last year since 2019, 2023 festival moved from June.)
Christopher Allen is a PBN staff writer. You may contact him at Allen@PBN.com.
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