Buffalo Rising Online

Although a great festival for WNY and certainly one of the most popular, the Allentown Art Festival has become very mainstream. This our 19th year and over the past 19 years have watched festival go from young+old party people to families and "dates". This is not a bad thing but those old days of Allentown were fun. As the festival grew so did the west end of Allen Street...all on its own. Really cool street party open to all...now a organized section of festival and boring. Maybe new festival will grow in aonother district and duplicate the "old" festival.

Have you been to the Elmwood Avenue Festival of the arts?

Time was anything west of Elmwood was considered off limits for the Arts & Crafts crowd, and an excuse to hang out in said area for an improptu jam session.

With Gentrification comes the extending of the boundries down Wadsworth and anything dealing with spontenaity sans booth might as well be residing in Louisiana .

Having been to decades of the Allentown Art Festival, it is always very well attended. This year both Saturday and Sunday were equally PACKED! I don't know how anyone can really tell but this year may have been a RECORD ATTENDANCE year! I found and purchased some GREAT ART and Buffalo was shining brightly in this great annual event.

Again this year The "dogs were out" . Why on earth do people bring their pets -man's best friend- to walk around on the scorching blacktop in the crowded maze of a festival. Last year I saw a dog actually pass out from the heat. Are the dogs buying merchandise ? When will the "society lovers" put a ban on dogs at the AAF ???? It's long overdue.

I hate to nit-pick and be perceived as negative, but that 300,000 attendance figure was debunked a few years ago by some crowd scientists. It has been proven that it's more in the neighborhood of 50,000 per day. Quite impressive in itself. No need to prop up the numbers into the absurd level.

RIB, Tell it to the Allentown Village Society. It is the first stat that appears on the Allentown Art Festival Homepage... I had heard that it was over that # at one point, so I played it safe using 'upwards'.

I wouldn't say the attendance estimate was "debunked". One company took their own method into the festival and gave their opinion which, if I recall correctly, was absurd. I think they said less than 10 thousand. The radio wags were sputtering about how that had to be right because there weren't even that many people in Buffalo. Oh my. They explained their methods which seemed seriously flawed and, to me, seemed like they were drawn by someone who had no idea how A'town worked. Or I am too stupid to get it. ALways a possibility. Anyway, as to the party atmosphere, those of us who remember the infamous A'town "riot" back in the 70's can attest to the fact that the Society seriously reigned in the festival after that and banned street musicians, etc. It is better for the artists this way. A reputable art festival does not want to be perceived as a "party" which is why they are worried about the impact of the music festival. I understand sales were very good this year which makes me happy for the artists. Making a living this way is a lot harder than it looks.

maybe change the name to Allentown Art Show. A festival, is a party: live music, street performers, games, actvities, etc. This is not what the Art Fest is. The Allen-West Festival was a lot of fun.

This is or has not been an art festival in years. Did you get your water sprinkler?