Charlottetown's Art in the Open festival scaling back for 2024

The popular Art in the Open festival will not be happening in Charlottetown this year — at least, not in the same way it usually does.

The free public contemporary arts showcase has taken place from 4 p.m. until midnight on the Saturday before Labour Day since 2011.

"We've done everything from large sculptures [to] outdoor theatre performances, projections, screenings, dance," said Art in the Open's current chair, Jordan Beaulieu.

"It's really unique and it's not really like anything else that we do in P.E.I."

The festival is spread throughout downtown Charlottetown, from Victoria Park and the surrounding wooded areas, to Connaught Square, Rochford Square and the Confederation Centre of the Arts.

A highlight for many is the annual March of the Crows. 

"People congregate on Victoria Row dressed up in their best crow costumes," Beaulieu said. "And they flap their wings and they caw and they march from Victoria Row to Victoria Park to roost, following the nightly twilight movements of the crows."

Although the typical Art in the Open won't be happening this year, organizers are planning some activities.

This year's events will take place over the weekend of Aug. 24-25, with This Town is Small and Club Red screening films outdoors in Victoria Park.

Fans of the March of the Crows, fear not — that event will take place as usual.

"It'll still be like an evening of fun, an evening of crows, an evening of art on the Art in the Open weekend," Beaulieu said. "But it'll look a bit different this year."

In previous years, artists came from across Atlantic Canada and even internationally to display their work at the festival, while hundreds of spectators made their way throughout downtown Charlottetown over the course of the evening.

"We're kind of taking a step back to do planning and to do public consultation," Beaulieu said.

That means creating a plan for the sustainability of the festival in future years, she said, and consulting with the public and the artists who display their work. All that will take place in the coming months.