K-UTE In Conversation: DIY FEST

Ahead of Craft Lake City's 16th annual DIY FEST, we sat down with Angela Brown to talk about the past, present, and future of the festival. Lucky for you, your chance to go this year is already here

K-UTE: What has been your favorite part about putting on the festival?

Angela Brown: Seeing the creative community become empowered. That’s one of the reasons why we wanted to start the DIY Festival, which is crazy. You know, we as Utahns had a lack of creative self-esteem and we just didn’t value ourselves. We looked to LA, San Francisco and New York and thought that’s where all the talent was. We even felt that we had to go to those cities in order to be respected or recognized. Of course, technology really decimated that and Covid-19 did as well, which were really great things that came out of those two movements. You can be anywhere now and get that respect.

The community for a long time just didn’t realise how talented our neighbors are. There were so many closeted makers and so we needed a space where they could come out and meet each other, from all different walks of life and connect through the power of creativity. 

Also entrepreneurship. Being a business owner myself, owning SLUG and Craft Lake City, it’s always been important to me to empower people to support small business makers and especially small creative businesses. 

The thought that we’re taught as young artists that we have to be a starving artist, that we can’t be successful or make money and live off our art is a fallacy. That’s another big reason why I wanted to create this marketplace so that not only could we discover this wonderful talent and shine a light on it, but also those individuals could be empowered by showing off their work and making money off of it. There is a place where individuals can make money from creative practice.

K-UTE: That is so well said! What are you most excited about this year?

Angela Brown: Every year we try to improve the DIY Festival, so this year I’m really excited about DIY Fest After Dark. We have a long history of having local music at the DIY Festival. But, one thing that changed when we moved to the State Fair Park was that our hours changed. Because of that, we stopped booking loud bands, so this is us being intentional about bringing louder music back to the festival and creating a sort-of local music, club-like atmosphere. We’ll close the market at 8pm and keep the stages up until 10pm.

K-UTE: That’s perfect. Are there any acts [or vendors] that you’re particularly excited about this year?

Angela Brown: Yes. One thing about the DIY Festival that’s so neat is it becomes a catalyst for new vendors, so we have so many first timers every year. So that’s my favorite thing is not only meeting the first timers, but also watching their creative journey throughout the 3 days. See them come in a little nervous and not know anyone and then by the end of it they’re best friends with the booth right next to them. They’ve met artisans that they look up to. We hear a lot of times that artisans come to the festival for the first time and realise that they want to be a part of it. “This is where I can show my work.” 

It’s like summer camp too, you see old friends. We’ve got a lot of returning artisans that have been with us a long time. You know, we’ve got Isaac Hastings who was at the very first festival in 2009. 16 years of doing his art professionally and creatively…it’s fun to see some old schoolers because we’ve kind of grown together. We don’t get a lot of time to connect besides over social media so it’s fun to see them in person and how they’ve improved their work.

There’s so many local bands [this year] that I haven’t heard or seen perform so I’m excited about that. 

K-UTE: Yeah, that is really great. Inspiration everywhere it sounds like. Now, what has been the most challenging part about putting on such an extensive event?

Angela Brown: The most challenging has been recruitment changing. We just have to work harder to get volunteers to help with the festival, which is what we’ve been hearing from everyone. It takes a lot of people and qualifications to put a festival together so getting all the specific details together can be a challenge.

K-UTE: Yeah, even if you think about just a music festival, that’s so much work in itself. And then you throw in a whole craft…it’s insane.

Angela Brown: Well yeah, and something that’s unique about what we do is we do separate events to go with 

each day. Like Friday night is our VIP night. And then Saturday we have Kid Row during the day and then DIY After Dark that night. Then Sunday we have Indie Game Developer Day…so it really is various events on top of each other.

K-UTE: That all sounds really great. Following that, what is your pipe dream or your biggest goal that you would really like to see happen in the future.

Angela Brown: I would like to continue to see it grow. See more attendees come every year and discover the power of creativity. I would like to see them discover the creativity within themselves. I’d also like to see more artisans come through. I mean, we’re the largest gathering of local artisans in the state. But, I’d love to see us as the largest gathering of local artisans in the country.

K-UTE: Yes, I liked how earlier you were talking about how “Oh it’s LA or New York that’s got it all” but Utah’s culture and scene really has [grown a lot] and you’ve played a huge part in that. As a Utahn myself it makes me happy to see that.

Is there anything else you would like people to know?

Angela Brown: Yes. We seriously cannot do what we do without the support from community members showing up, the artisans, the volunteers. And also without incredible partners like K-UTE.

You heard it here first. Be sure to show up and show out for Craft Lake City, local businesses and local artists. Hope to see you all there!

Get your tickets for DIY Fest now at the link below!

craftlakecity.com

TRANSCRIPTION BY: LANEY HANSEN