Sparkfest returns to celebrate student artists at Miami
Annual event continues to grow; will be held on April 17 this year
Sparkfest returns to celebrate student artists at Miami
Annual event continues to grow; will be held on April 17 this year
Sparkfest, an annual celebration of student creativity at Miami University, will take place on Friday, April 17, bringing together artists, performers, and creators from across campus.
“It's basically a big celebration of the arts and artists at Miami,” said senior Jack Drayer, the event’s lead co-chair.
Hosted outdoors on the Arts Quad, the festival was created post-COVID, to bring together student artists from every department of the College of Creative Arts. “The goal,” Drayer said, “is to legitimize their efforts and their arts.”
The event features a wide range of student work and activities. “We bring together, sellers, performers, student orgs, and vendors,” Drayer said. A major component of Sparkfest is its student marketplace. “A big portion of our vendors are sellers who are Miami University students.”
For attendees, the experience is immersive and full of things to do. “We'll have basically the whole art squad covered in tables,” Drayer said. “We have a stage area set up right in front of the CPA, where we have a sound booth and we'll have performers going throughout the day.”
Now in its fifth year, Sparkfest has grown significantly. “The first year, they had about 20 total performers, vendors, sellers,” Drayer said. “Then last year we ended up having about 125.”
Drayer hopes to continue that growth. “The mission is just to generate as much of an audience as possible,” he said. “Being able to see the students being successful there, and seeing that their art and their craft is validated”.
He emphasized the importance of that recognition, especially for students pursuing creative work. “Knowing that their art is something worth striving toward, gives them a sort of satisfaction,” Drayer said.
Sparkfest is designed to appeal to a wide audience. “If you're an enjoyer of just art, media, any sort of form, there is something, I think, for everybody,” Drayer said. “No two vendors are doing exactly the same thing.”
The festival will run from noon to 5 p.m. “Pretty much all day,” Drayer said. Sparkfest is as much about community as it is about art. “I very much get a sense of reward out of this,” Drayer noted. “Being able to bring in a bigger audience, I'd love to increase that number even more this year.”