Volunteers needed for Art at Night

Art at Night is a celebration of New Glasgow’s rich and ever-evolving arts community. On the first Saturday in May, over 120 painters, sculptors, musicians and more will be displaying their creations at a variety of venues in the historic downtown area.

This is the ninth year for the event, and organizers are currently looking for volunteers.

“Art at Night is completely run by volunteers, so it requires a wide variety of skill sets from our volunteers. Our board members cover most of the ‘positions’ held within the event; however, we always welcome volunteers to help out in any way,” said Ian Grant, event co-ordinator for New Glasgow’s Art at Night. “We have a large setup involved, including setting up tents, putting up posters, moving chair and tables, etc.

All we look for is a willingness and openness to help.”

Grant expects this year’s event to be fresh and inspiring.

“We are working with some new venues and new partnerships to give some fresh new experiences for our patrons. We have also already started talking about next year, which will be our 10-year anniversary,” said Grant. “We hear, year after year, about how important our event is to the local artists of our community. There isn’t always a lot opportunity for artists to showcase their artwork, and this is a great way for them to do so.”

Beyond the artists, this also provides a safe, exciting, experience for those in attendance, he adds.

“I’ve heard on a few occasions how important this is for people to go out and spend an evening downtown, seeing all that our very artistic community has to offer,” said Grant.

The event is free to the public and last year’s event was noted to be a major success.

“We saw a significant growth in number of submissions and participating artists. It created some struggles in placing individual artists, but we had some community members and organizations step up and assist with providing us space. For an event with such an open, free atmosphere, it’s hard to give exact numbers, but we had some people estimate nearly three thousand people in attendance,” said Grant.

Art at Night is always held

on the first Saturday in May, which began in conjunction with National Youth Arts Week. A 19-plus After Party, with live music, is also being planned with details to be announced later in the spring.

Grant is excited about this year’s event and looks forward to the new art submissions.

“We are excited to bring another great evening of all forms of human expression and art to the people of Pictou County and beyond,” he said. “We are looking forward to seeing all of our regular artists submit, as well as the new and different submissions that bring liveliness and freshness to the evening.”