In an April 4 Zoom meeting of the Parks & Recreation Commission, Louis Briones, chair of the Sausalito Art Festival Foundation, announced plans to present a smaller, simpler and less expensive version of the festival later this year.
Instead of the usual 50,000 attendees, the Foundation anticipates welcoming 4,500 people over three days. Briones is looking at a late summer date, but not over Labor Day weekend, as in the past.
The Foundation is currently applying for a license for the festival, so details are still fluid, but the staging areas would include parking lot 2 and Humboldt Street behind the old Bank of America building, now the Sausalito Center for The Arts, plus nearby Gabrielson Park. One challenge will be re-routing tour buses, which currently use Humboldt Street to load and unload passengers.
Briones mentioned that the Foundation plans to feature local artists, more like the festivals of the last century. Or, as Commission Chair Raylene Gorum put it, “Bringing Sausalito back to the Sausalito Arts Festival.”
If you’d like to receive updates on the planning process for the festival, you can subscribe to an email list on the Foundation’s website. And save the dates of May 21 and 22 for the Foundation’s benefit art sale with proceeds supporting relief for refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. This event will be held at the Sausalito Center for The Arts and will feature creations in multiple categories from artists associated with the Sausalito Art Festival.