Sun’s out, fun’s out

By Kendra Michal Johnson

Temperatures are growing warmer, days are getting longer and conditions are just right for strolling down a street lined with artist’s booths, snacking on food truck favorites and listening to live performances as dusk slowly falls.

Outdoor arts events are back for the 2023 season.

LIVE! on the Plaza

In the Plaza District, the LIVE! events had shifted to the second Sunday afternoon of the month for the winter, but starting in March, LIVE! on the Plaza returned to its regular 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. time slot on the second Friday of each month.

And the festival has big plans in store for the spring, starting April 14.

“April is the Earth Day LIVE!, so we always partner up with a lot of conservation- and nature-oriented or maybe litter pickup-oriented organizations and nonprofits,” Plaza District Association Director of Marketing and Programming Joel Parks said.

The OKC Zoo is a regular staple at the April event and sometimes brings animals along with them.

“We do an upcycled fashion show,” Parks said. “So Dig It [OKC] is a business in the Plaza District and they have a lot of vintage upcycled fashion. And so there’s a whole fashion show of upcycled art and wearable art.”

Next, May’s event is Plaza Con, on May 12.

“Plaza Con is all things pop culture, whether that be video games, movies, and we do cosplay and we do a cosplay fashion show and and have a lot of fun with that one,” he said.

June 9 is Pride On the Plaza, which will see a first for the district this year.

“We’re actually going to shut the street down, which we’ve never done for a LIVE! before,” Parks said.

He said he’s excited to see the event expand into the street.

“We realized the crowds were of such a size and the audience was such a size, like, we need to shut the street down, one, for just foot traffic to be safer, and then, two, to make the event better and better programming and we can have more space,” he said.

The Plaza District plans to shift to the second Sunday afternoon of the month when the time changes in the fall to accommodate the colder weather, Parks said, before shifting back to Friday evenings when clocks move forward again in the spring.

More information can be found at plazadistrict.org and on the events’ social media pages.

Festival of the Arts

April also means the return of the annual Festival of the Arts, organized by Arts Council OKC.

With 144 artists and approximately 30 food vendors, the five-day festival is celebrating its 57th year.

Held April 25 through 30 at Bicentennial Park in downtown Oklahoma City, the event organizers are expecting 650,000 attendees.

It takes more than 5,000 people, mostly volunteers, to keep things running—headed by volunteer cochairs Farooq Karim and Susie White, working alongside the Arts Council OKC staff.

The festival includes activities for a range of ages.

“We’re trying to sort of build the next generation of artists and patrons,” Karim said. “So we actually will have a tent where kids can go buy art that’s from the festival artists.”

Each item in the tent is for sale for $5.

Additionally, a juried art sale will feature artwork from youth ages 8 to 18.

“They’re sometimes a little shy at first to kind of talk about their art but it is so fun to interact with those young artists and and to have them have the opportunity to actually interact with people who may or may not buy their work and, you know, a lot of them will sell out,” Karim said.