Tens of thousands expected to attend the fair this year

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

— Forty-two years and counting.

That’show long the Bella Vista Arts & Crafts Festival has been in existence.

This year’s event will be from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 13-15.

Director Misty Bakersaid more than 325 booths have been reserved for this year’s show.

Baker, in her third year as director, said she and her staff of five volunteers have been working since the end of the 2010 show organizing this year’s event.

“This is the Village Art Club’s onlyfundraising event during the year,” Baker explained. Money earned from the show will go to scholarships and artists’ continuing education, as wellas support of Wishing Spring Gallery in Bella Vista.

Both the Village Art Club and the gallery are nonprofit organizations. The same is true of the craft fair.

“We are the only one out of the 10 or 12 (that same weekend) that is nonprofit,” Baker said.

Vendors this year range from firsttimers to some who have participated since the early 1970s.

Two of those with longevity are Robert and Martha Anglin, of Siloam Springs, who make and sell unfinished wood products.

Geneva Harris, who creates paper mache boxes, began in 1975, as did Nick Owens, maker of redwood signs.

The vendors have only one basic rule they must adhere to - whatever they are selling must be handmade and artist made. Baker said anybody found violating that rule will be asked to leave.

Before a vendor can set up shop, he or she must be accepted by the show organizers.

“We have a juried art show, and we vote on the quality of the art,” Baker said.

Even the longtime vendors have to go through the same process if theychange what they plan to sell, she noted.

Regardless, every vendor must reapply each year to participate the following fall.

Nobody receives any sort of preferential treatment, Baker said.

When she and her staff make up the vendor assignments, they are keenly aware of who is selling what.

“We watch that we don’t have any overload of any particular item,” she said. She doesn’t want to end up with two vendors selling the same thing side by side.

As a result of all their work beforehand, Baker said they have been able to attract “world-class artists from all across the United States.”

While not required, the vendors are asked to have the artist on site during the three-day event.

“We prefer to have them in the booth, and we love to have them demonstrating their work,” Baker said.

Along with the crafts, there will be 15 food vendors at the 2011 festival. Baker said they’ll offer “breakfast to dinner and everything in between.” There will be a wide selection of food, including American, Italian, Mexican, Indian and more.

“This is the largest economic-impact weekend Bella Vista has all year,” Baker said. “I have talked to business owners and retailers all over and they agree, bar none.”

While it is hard to put an exact figure on how many people visit the shows allover northwest Arkansas, Baker said the number usually batted around is 200,000. She estimates that 30,000 to 40,000 of them come to Bella Vista,and many of them more than once.

“Hotels from Bentonville to Rogers are full that weekend,” Baker said.

There is unlimited free parking at the show. Members of the Bella Vista Sunrise Rotary Club will be on hand to assist, and free rides will be available from the car parking area to the show and back.

The Rotarians are just a small part of the more than 200 volunteers who will be helping this year, setting up and taking down the tents, transporting visitors, picking up litter and serving as show ambassadors.

Find out more about the show, or apply as a vendor for 2012 beginning Oct. 10, at www.bellavistafestival.org. Call Baker’s office in Town Center, next door to The Weekly Vista, at 855-2064, or email her at info@bellavistafestival. org.

Area, Pages 22 on 09/28/2011