ekTEK was proud to be the inaugural producer of the Boston Arts Festival in 2003, a weekend event that launched Boston’s Open Studios and performing arts season. The festival included two stages and a custom built artists’ village in Christopher Columbus Park adjacent to Boston’s historic North End on the waterfront. The park had been recently re-modeled and this was the first time it was to host a major event. ekTEK managed the call to artists, contracts, artist jury, park layout and event production, in what was a holistic involvement in putting structure in place for future festivals to flourish.
The challenges were to draw a schematic of the entire park, facilitate a soothing environment for the artist village for the vendors to engage their visitors, produce a performance program adjacent to the village and to coordinate a very tight drop-off and pick-up schedule for over 85 artists due to construction near the park. All aspects were managed carefully, and the sound from the concert stage did not overcome the artists’ village experience. A team of people to assist artists in drop-off and pick-up moved with the urgency of formula 1 race mechanics, drawing praise from artists who were not used to such a level of assistance.
The event attracted crowds in their thousands and artists reported robust sales of their art, making it a success. ekTEK returned to manage the event in 2005.