Why Blumenthal Arts quietly ended popular Charlotte International Arts Festival
The popular Charlotte International Arts Festival is not returning for a fifth time this fall, Blumenthal Arts officials confirmed to The Charlotte Observer.
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In 2022, Blumenthal launched the festival that eventually grew to run through most of September to highlight global and local diversity, music and immersive art, alongside programs like the Charlotte Jazz Festival and Charlotte SHOUT.
However, the event always had a “sunset,” or finite timeline as a four-year initiative, Blumenthal CEO Tom Gabbard told The Observer during a recent interview.
“We want to keep ourselves open to whatever the next new thing is,” said Gabbard, who is retiring by the end of 2027 after 23 years with Blumenthal Arts.
During its inaugural year, the festival drew over 70,000 people and featured 170 free events, 150 art installations and dozens of performances across multiple venues. By the third festival in 2024, more than 500,000 people experienced over 200 events representing 63 countries, including five large-scale art installations, according to Blumenthal.
“We had a festival that brought a lot of joy to a lot of people and introduced them to the work of artists all over the world and here in Charlotte,” Kristen Miranda, director of community impact and partnership for Blumenthal Arts, recently told the Observer.
Miranda emphasized that Blumenthal Arts is ready to pivot to new creative opportunities.
“It’s what we do here,” she said. “We take these new ideas, we nurture them until they’re super successful, and then we embrace the opportunity to create the next really cool thing.”
The Charlotte International Arts Festival included international visual and performing artists participating alongside local artists and organizations, representing cultural traditions from around the world.
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A CLTure Day + Night Market showcased Chinese lion dancers and martial arts demonstrations to a K-pop and J-pop Silent Disco with live entertainment and cultural performances all day long at NoDa at Divine Barrel
There was the world premiere of “Blackstar Symphony, The Music of David Bowie,” a symphony based on the rock icon’s final album, Afrique en Cirque — featuring African culture, music and circus stunts and eVenti Verticali, an Italian company that performed on vertical and aerial stages.
Other sights included the Netherland’s Birdmen — massive, illuminated, beaked creatures — that roamed the streets of Charlotte while acrobats with an Australian company swayed on 15-foot poles to celebrate nature.
Additional favorite spectacles included Lotty — a giant interactive squid sculpture from Moradavaga by artists in Italy and Portugal, “Man” — a 38-foot-high, 40-foot-wide inflatable inspired by “The Thinker,” and Gaia, an enormous inflatable globe from the U.K.
The arts festival also grew to incorporate local cultural festivals like the Latin American Festival, Festival of India and Southern Guitar Festival and Competition.
“It was a great catalyst for other festivals, we’re just excited to watch them grow and thrive,” Miranda said.
She did not rule out a potential return of the international festival in the future. “We’re always looking at what things that we have done where the timing is right to bring them back,” Miranda said.
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Reporter Claire Harutunian contributed to this report.
