EAST LANSING, Mich. — The City of East Lansing is excited to share that despite the cancellation of the in-person 57th Annual East Lansing Art Festival (ELAF) due to the COVID-19 crisis, festival staff are working to provide virtual festival offerings between now and Saturday, May 16 — what would have been the start of the festival weekend in downtown East Lansing.
The ELAF website, www.elartfest.com/artists, has been updated to include links to the 2020 exhibiting artists’ websites. The online artist listing, which is available now, provides festival patrons with an opportunity to support this year’s ELAF artists by shopping online. Each week, leading up to May 16, different art mediums will be showcased on the ELAF social media accounts.
Additionally, on Saturday, May 16, a full day of live-streaming art offerings will be hosted on the ELAF Facebook page. The offerings will include online musical performances, online artist demonstrations, online demonstrations for at-home children’s art activities, artist award announcements and more. All festival offerings will be dependent on sponsorships and additional information will be announced as soon as details are confirmed. If interested in sponsoring a performance, demonstration or artist award, please contact ELAF Coordinator Heather Majano at hmajano@cityofeastlansing.com.
“We have been overwhelmed with the support of the ELAF community, with more than 20,000 people seeing, commenting and/or sharing our festival cancellation post on Facebook. We hope these virtual offerings will provide the community with something to enjoy and look forward to in these difficult times,” said Majano. “We also hope that this effort will provide some much-needed support to our exhibiting artists, who are facing many festival and event cancellations due to the COVID-19 crisis.”