The Bella Vista Arts and Crafts Festival is the biggest thing to happen in Bella Vista each year, festival director Elaine Reinke said, and the entire community helps make it happen.
The festival is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday
This year there will be 230 exhibitors at the site on Forest Hills Boulevard, south of Arkansas Highway 340,
Many local clubs and civic groups, everyone from the Rotary to a local 4-H group, will be helping at the festival. Both the city and the POA are involved as well, she said.
New this year is a family tent, Reinke said. It will feature face painting, crafts with the Museum of Native American History in Bentonville, and a demonstration bee hive. Special visits from the life-size Haribo gummy bear are expected, along with gummy-bear crafts. The family tent will give parents the chance to split up so one parent can entertain the kids while the other parent continues to shop.
There will be 16 food vendors in the central area and that's all that will fit, Reinke said.
Many exhibitors have been coming to the fair since it was located in Blowing Springs, she said. They like to return to the same booth and have made friends with the people in neighboring booths over the years.
One couple, the Anglins, started with the fair in 1970 and still exhibit every year, assistant director Susan Westling said.
Some newer exhibitors have moved to the Bella Vista festival from other area fairs, Reinke said, because every exhibitor in Bella Vista is juried. A jury of three members of the Village Art Club see photographs of the exhibitor's work and decide if it will meet the show's criteria. It's not fair to people who hand make crafts to compete with people who sell items imported from China, she explained. The jury process ensures that everything at the Bella Vista festival fair is handmade.
"That's why people come to the Bella Vista Craft Fair," Reinke said, "to see handmade items. That won't change."
For the exhibitors, the volunteer ambassadors are a big benefit, she said. Many of the ambassadors are young people who help unload and set up the booths. During the fair, they are available to watch the booth if the exhibitor needs a break.
Because the festival's organizer, the Village Art Club of Bella Vista, is a nonprofit, all the profits go back into the community. The Art Club spends their portion on things like art materials for area schools and scholarships. Some of the organizations that volunteer receive a stipend that they apply to their own projects and charities.
Next year the Bella Vista Arts and Crafts Festival will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Reinke expects it will only get bigger and better.
General News on 10/18/2017