Open Doors Citywide Arts Festival

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The Open Doors Citywide Arts Festival is New Jersey's largest multiday celebration of the visual and performing arts, occurring over five days in Newark, the state’s largest city. Now in its 15th year, the festival, taking place Oct. 19-23, draws thousands of visitors, as more than 40 venues join forces to showcase visual, performing and literary art.

All are invited to celebrate the arts during Open Doors, the festival that furthers Newark's prominence as an artistic and cultural powerhouse. Open calls for submissions (now closed) resulted in a record 300-plus submissions, from as far away as Amsterdam. Submissions included 212 artist opportunities, 47 special projects, 17 established galleries, 27 open studies and 19 events.

This year, the festival is being produced collaboratively by the Newark Arts Council and Gallery Aferro. It promises to be a banner year for the festival, which also coincides with Newark Celebration 350, a yearlong celebration of the city’s 350th anniversary, and the biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry festival, the largest festival of its kind in North America.

The event will kick off with an Opening Reception on Oct. 19 at the Newark Museum featuring keynote speaker Monica Montgomery and a Public Launch Party and Vendor's Fair at Prudential Center’s Championship Plaza on Oct. 20. The weekend will include a Friday Night Gallery Crawl on Oct. 21, a guided tour of public art on Oct. 22 entitled "Murals and Martinis (tm)", an Open Studio Tour on Sunday, Oct. 23, and so much more.

We are in need of many volunteers to help with this event, with everything from registration to gallery sitting to set-up/clean-up. We are also looking for volunteers now to help with painting and cleaning the raw gallery spaces.

Please contact nikki@newarkarts.org with questions on how to get involved or sign up to be a volunteer now at newarkarts.org/volunteer

Thank you for your support!