Q&A with Downtown South Bend’s Kylie Carter on Art Beat
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Downtown South Bend’s largest annual celebration of the arts returns Saturday with its most expansive lineup yet. Now in its 22nd year, Art Beat will take over Jefferson Bridge and the East Bank with more than 500 local artists, musicians, food vendors and nonprofits.
What started in 2003 as a small showcase for local talent has grown into a marquee summer event that uplifts artists financially, supports downtown businesses and draws thousands of visitors to experience a “magical” side of the city.
Ahead of the festival, Inside INdiana Business spoke with Downtown South Bend Director of Marketing and Events Kylie Carter about how Art Beat has evolved, what’s new this year and why it remains such a powerful point of pride for the region’s creative community.
This article has been edited for brevity and clarity.
For someone who’s never been to Art Beat, how would you describe it and why should they come this year?
I like to say we have something for everyone and we make art accessible. A lot of times, people think of art as being high brow, like it’s only for people who have berets on and drink their tea with their pinky up. But we want people to know art is for everyone. It’s a great connector. It’s a really great way to meet people. There’s no entry fee. There’s things to eat, things to see and things to do. It’s a big event, and you’re going to want to hang out for at least a few hours, so leave yourself some time to enjoy it. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t come.
How has the event evolved over its 22 years?
The original intent of ArtBeat, which still holds true today, is to celebrate our local artists. It started as a way to celebrate the talent that we have artistically in our community. This is our 22nd year but it started out as a smaller event. It has grown through the years and we still just love to celebrate our local artists and to really position South Bend as a hub of arts and culture.
Can you share a story that illustrates the kind of impact Art Beat can have on local artists?
We have the goals of helping out our local artists financially. A lot of them claim that this is one of their most lucrative events. For some of them, this is the only event they do in the year and it’s enough. We had this really great story a few years ago with one of our artists with autism. He’s been a participant for years and he wasn’t quite sure if he was going to have the money to go to college that fall. Because of his earnings at ArtBeat, he became financially viable for college. Stories like that are why we do the event.
The goal is for the artists to both make money and gain recognition for their art. A lot of times, people make art and it’s a vulnerable, scary thing to have it on display. We give that chance for people to show off their work. It also becomes an opportunity for artists to network and connect with other artists.
What are some of the other goals powering Art Beat?
We also have goals around serving the community. We want them to have a super fun time downtown, to experience the wealth of local artwork that we have and also to enjoy a day where you’re walking in areas you normally drive. It gives you a chance to just slow down, walk those streets, look at the views of the river, see all the art, run into neighbors and family. “Magical” is the number one word that we often hear from visitor surveys when we ask them to describe the event. And I agree, there’s a lot of magic, happiness and joy in ArtBeat.
Serving our downtown businesses is also one of our goals. A lot of them have reported that ArtBeat is one of their busiest days of the year. Because even though we have food vendors, a lot of people visit our downtown businesses while they’re here.
Do you track how much artists earn during the event?
Yeah, we do. We do a set of surveys for artists and for participants. One of the questions asks if they made $0 to $100, $100 to $500, all the way up to $10,000. It’s crazy but some people make around $5,000 to $10,000 from the event. So it’s really awesome to see that our event helps to provide that platform for artists to make some money.
How does the artist selection process work now that demand has grown?
The first few years after I took this role, everybody got in. As the event has grown in size, scope and reputation, we get more applicants each year but our number of booths remain the same. So unfortunately, it causes us to have to turn away more people each year. But on the flip side, it helps us to really curate our artwork more. So we have the ability to be more selective. A jury of five to eight Art Beat committee members review the applications.
We have three kinds of artists, so we have three different applications for culinary, visual and performing artists. We also have an application for nonprofits. Just for visual artists, we had about 350 applicants and we were able to accept 200. About 60 applications for performing and I believe we accepted all but a couple. Sometimes we get people who apply outside of the counties of eligibility. So we have to turn them down, unfortunately. We only allow applicants from St. Joseph, Elkhart, La Porte, Marshall, Kosciusko and Stark counties in Indiana and Berrien, Cass and St. Joseph counties in Michigan. For culinary, we had about 50 applicants, and we let them all in this time. So it’s going to be a great mix of food this year. For the nonprofits, we had about 15. We stipulate that they have an art-based activity. So there would be a lot of free interactive art opportunities.
What’s the Creative Commons about?
That’s a new thing this year. In the past, we’ve had an area called Kid Beat with interactive opportunities for kids. But a lot of adults also wanted interactive opportunities, so we decided to get our arts-based nonprofits together and give them a platform to reach the entire community with free interactive art experiences for people of all ages.
Apart from the Creative Commons, what’s new at this year’s event?
This is the largest number of food vendors we’ve ever had. We had about 30 last year and we’re close to 50 this year. We also have some fun new interactive art activities on the Jefferson Bridge. The Renaissance Fair is bringing their pirate ship for a photo-op. My family will be displaying our antique bicycle collection from the 1800s with the big wheel in front and little one in back.
What inspired the choice of Jefferson Bridge and the East Bank as the event location?
This is going to be my 12th Art Beat. For my first six years, it was on Michigan Street and it was great. But then Michigan Street was going to be repaved one summer. So we had to rethink where we were going to put Art Beat. We had just celebrated South Bend’s 150th birthday with an event that had a similar layout to what we have for Art Beat now and it was really successful. So we decided to try putting it on the Jefferson Bridge into Howard Park. It was just going to be for that year while Michigan Street was repaved but it was so well received that we stuck with it. That’s a fun fact.
Are volunteers still needed, and what kinds of roles can people sign up for?
We sure are. We love volunteers; they are the heart of Art Beat. We have about 100 volunteer opportunities. As of right now, they are about half full but we’ll accept folks all the way up till the day of the event. A lot of times, people will just come to the volunteer headquarters at Howard Park to volunteer. We give them a shirt and put them to work.
We have a mix of volunteer opportunities from setup and tear down, info booth, stage managers, to people who pass out our welcome bags. We also have people from local sustainability groups who help make sure that the recycle bins are pure before we take them to the recycling center, so they’re not contaminated by trash.
Do you see Art Beat expanding into a multi-day event in the future?
We actually ask that in our visitor and participant surveys and it’s really split down the middle. It is such an exhausting event for both the artists and for us. It’s about a 13-hour day for us and the artists. It would be hard to imagine getting up and doing it again the next day. But if there’s enough demand, we would consider doing that. I know it is a really beloved event and people want more of it, so maybe someday.