BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Elmwood Village Association announced Wednesday that after a vote with its board, it will now take on a leadership role with the former Elmwood Avenue Festival of the Arts.
This comes after previous organizers of the popular festival announced that it will be canceled indefinitely. The annual festival has been held on Elmwood Avenue for over two decades.
The EVA said with blessings from the event’s longstanding organizers, Joe DiPasquale and Tanya Zabinski, that many of the activities and features the public loves about the festival will remain including music, a “kids’ zone,” and food, and especially the work of artists and craftspeople from the region and beyond but it will be an all-new art festival.
"We are thrilled that the EVA will present this event to the community,” said James Cichocki, executive director. “Our neighborhood and the entire city loved the Elmwood Avenue Festival of the Arts,” he added. “It was a great way to support local artists as well as the small businesses in the Elmwood Village, and it always felt like the last hurrah of summer. The organizers who ran the festival for so many years did an excellent job, and we hope that the festival we bring to the Village will honor their legacy."
The EVA taking on this new leadership role comes with its experience managing popular community events like the free Bidwell Summer Concert Series; Porchfest; the Bidwell Parkway Farmers Market; holiday tree lighting and decorations along the avenue; Autumn on Elmwood; and the upcoming fundraiser, “Born in the EVA.”
"We have worked with Therese Deutschlander, of Thin Ice and the Elmwood Village Association, for 17 years and have known her to be a tireless promoter of local artists. We wish her and the Elmwood Village Association the best of luck in reimagining a new festival for the city of Buffalo,” Tanya Zabinski and Joe DiPasquale said.