This year is a fresh start for the Lowertown Arts & Music Festival. In previous years the City of Paducah has been the promoter and organizer of this festival, calling on various members of the community at large for support and contribution. Working from these foundations, this year the festival will be organized and promoted by the Lowertown Neighborhood Association and the Artists themselves.
This will bring a different energy to the project and will bring a broad Regional Richness that includes the best of all the Arts that Western Kentucky and Paducah can offer... Thanks for your participation!
The Purpose (Mission)
- To Create a Regional awareness of Paducah as a cultural center for the arts and artists
- To encourage a local perception that Lowertown is an accessible retail environment for all sorts of consumers throughout the year.
- To Cross promote the Arts with local commercial contributors.
- To create an opportunity to contribute to Non-Profit organizations in the area.
- To have some fun with our friends and neighbors.
Scope and Quality of the Festival
The Festival occurs in the neighborhood known as Lowertown. The neighborhood, as defined by the city, extends from Third street to Ninth street; from Jefferson to Park... the boundries of the festival are slightly smaller including Sixth and Seventh Streets from Monroe to Harrison, with the president streets 'gatewayed' at Fifth and Eighth Streets. While the physical boundries of the festival are defined by requirements involving the service of alcoholic beverages, the classification of roads as county highways, and other mysteries too arcane to fathom, there are quite a few of the promenent Artists and Galleries that Fall outside these festival boundries.
Part of the Festival plan includes focusing attention not only on the 'street' action- but also actively promoting visits to each of the Artist/Art locations throughout the district.
Because the long term goals of both the City and the District include it's identification as an arts destination now and especially in the future, there will be a special emphasis on the quality of every aspect of the festival.
All of the Artists will be juried and so will all of the food vendors and other performers as well. The general thinking is that even if we start small, if we start with a superior experience then returning folks will bring their friends. If we have a wonderful product it will continue to attract more of that kind of attention and will grow appropriately... plant good seeds...
Project Challenges
We all hear about "this economy" every day... One of our challenges for this year, and probably every year as we continue, will be the acquisition of good community partners who will bring to the mix a combination of Financial strength, Promotional stamina, Social networking and Community Support and involvement.
