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NewsSeptember 25, 2008Kozmo is Coming! Craftproducers has long been famous for finding creative “street” performers to entertain festival patrons. Continuing the tradition, Kozmo, the magician will perform at the Hildene Fall Arts Festival and the Adirondack Arts and Crafts Fair. His magic is quite baffling and his running commentary irreverent and funny. His act alone is worth the price of admission. If you need a good laugh, don’t miss Kozmo. Speaking of tradition, The Doc Scanlon Dixieland Jazz Trio will return to the Adirondack show on Saturday October 18. Actually, all three fall shows offer live music. See each festival for details. September 8, 2008 Vermont Cheese, Beer, and Sausage Tent Always ahead of the posse, Craftproducers will launch a Vermont Cheese, Beer, and Sausage tasting and sampling tent at this fall’s Hildene Fall Arts Festival on October 3-5 in Manchester, VT and the following weekend at the Stowe Foliage Arts Festival in Stowe. Vermont Smoke and Cure will offer five different sausages: hot and sweet Italian, andouille, Otter Creek beer bratwurst, and a Cabot cheese and apple bratwurst. Local chefs in Manchester including Henry Bronson will serve additional sausages. In Stowe there will be a “war” of sausages with several chefs competing for the best sausage in Stowe. Cabot Creamery and Vermont Butter and Cheese will serve a variety of cheese including cheddar and goat milk soft cheese. Local artisan cheese will also be served. For quenching your thirst after tasting the cheeses and sausages, a wide selection of beer will be offered. Otter Creek’s Wolaver Organic beers will be served as well as their Copper Ale. Rock Art will offer up Ridge Runner, Magnemus, and Double Smoky Porter, a Belgian style “extreme” beer. Switchback Ale from Burlington, VT will be poured as well. August 27, 2008 Welcome Autumn Fall is our favorite season. As summer wanes and school starts, normal rhythms resume. The urge for outdoor activities has been satiated by several months of hiking, golf, tennis, kayaking, and other sporting ventures. Now is the time when Craft Festivals become the focus of an afternoon’s outing. Here in Vermont we are assisted in attracting patrons by the foliage phenomenon. People take a drive to the country to witness the transformation from summer to winter. The vivid colors are our reward before months of whiteness. All three of our Fall shows offer spectacular foliage and the two Vermont shows enjoy visitors from all across the country, Canada, and even the whole world as Stowe has many foreign visitors. Never before has the quality of the festivals been better. The Festivals are a great place to discover new artists and to support locally made goods ranging from one of a kind to well crafted production pieces. New this season is the Vermont Cheese, Beer, and Sausage Tent where customers can sample a variety of Vermont cheeses including Cabot Cheese, sausages from Vermont Smoke and Cure, and beers from Otter Creek, Switchback, and Rock Art. In addition to shopping creatively and supporting sustainably made products, festival patrons can enjoy live entertainment to go along with the fabulous eats. Visit our Festivals page for more complete details for each show. August 15, 2008 Saratoga Music Festival Craftproducers will be attending the 1st Annual Saratoga Music Festival this coming weekend (Sunday, August 17) with a wonderful and dedicated group of Artist and Artisan Exhibitors. Find jewelry, woodwork, fiber, fine art, and more on the field near the concession booths. July 14, 2008 4th Annual New Taste of Stowe Festival Leaps Forward Now in its second year, the collaboration between the Helen Day Art Center and Craftproducers is quickly evolving into an artistic tour de force. The New Taste of Stowe initially combined the Stowe Art and Craft Festival with Helen Day’s Taste of Stowe Arts Festival. “Together, the synergy has expanded two small events into one that promises to create a destination weekend, a “Columbus Day Weekend” in the middle of the summer,” says Charley Dooley of Craftproducers. The New Taste of Stowe Arts Festival will be held at Topnotch Field Friday through Sunday July 25 through 27 and will showcase 150 artists and artisans. These exhibitors embody the slogan “locally made.” They all work in their own studios creating, designing, and actually making their products. This show is the largest assemblage of two dimensional Art in Vermont, due in large part to the 40 artists sponsored by the Helen Day Art Center. All three dimensional media are represented including clay, glass, leather, jewelry, metal, wood, wearable and non-wearable fiber, sculpture, and other categories The ensemble makes for creative shopping and the region’s best art/craft show. However, The New Taste of Stowe Arts Festival is hardly an ordinary craft fair. It is also a culinary event starring several chef luminaries from Stowe and beyond. There will be a different culinary theme daily. Friday is Vermont Farm Day with six local farms serving raw milk and cheese; vegan and raw deserts; chicken, lamb, and vegetarian kabobs; pulled pork; grass fed beef, pork, and lamb barbeque samples; organic pasture raised braised brisket; organic pasture raised turkey canaries; and, of course, organic produce. Saturday is A Taste of Luxury, with Stowe’s three premier spas offering spa treatments and samples of their menus. The Stoweflake Resort and Spa will serve Organic Watermelon Gazpacho with Duck Trap Smoked Shrimp and Micro Herbs and Ancho Braised Pork Fajita with Smoked Local Corn Pico de Gallio. Their dessert will be Homemade Local Strawberry Shortcake. Topnotch Resort and Spa will have four food stations: Golden Tomato and Gold Beet Gazpacho with Grilled Peach Relish Paired with Magic Hat Circus Boy; Seared Diver Sea Scallop with Pepper Cress and Pineapple Gin Gastrique Paired with Topnotch’s own “Top Collins”; Oysters on the Half Shell with Truffled King Salmon Tartar and Passion Fruit Mignonette Paired with Rose Champagne; and, Lillet Crème-filled Choux Puffs with Poached Apricot and Caramel Paired with Moscatod’Asti. And, last but not least, Stowe Mountain Lodge will serve a Petit Lamb Burger paired with its own Hourglass Ale and Vermont Artisan Cheese with Accoutrements. Their dessert will be Wild Berry and Vanilla Napoleon. After all the wining and dining, tasting and sampling, the same three resorts will offer spa treatments including Pure Zen Sound Therapy, Aromatherapy Paraffin Infusions, Chair and Table Massages, Facials, Foot and Leg Exfoliation and Message, and a Jasmine Hand Treatment. After such a luxurious Saturday, it is hard to imagine how Sunday might ever equal it! Well, more than a dozen area chefs and caterers will serve two or more selections from their menus which will be paired with wines and beers in the dining tent. Peter Blanchette will play his archguitar for ambiance with selections ranging from Bach to the haunting melodies from Fellini films. After the New Taste of Stowe closes for the afternoon, patrons are encouraged to travel a few miles up the road for the Vermont Mozart Festival at Trapp Family Lodge, culminating in a dazzling display of firework over the valley under the stars. The New Taste of Stowe Arts Festival is collaboration between the Helen Day Art Center and Craftproducers. It is a fund raiser for the Helen Day Center. The show runs July 25 through 27, 10AM-5PM daily. Adult admission is $8. The Festival is held under large white Camelot tents and operates rain or shine. Weekend passes are available for $10 to allow patrons access to each of the exciting days. Pets are not allowed. For more information, visit www.craftproducers.com or www.helenday.org or call (802) 253-7321. June 27, 2008 Summer Festivals! The summer festivals are almost here! Festival Guests: learn more about the shows on our Festivals page. For information about the New Taste of Stowe Arts Festival, you may also call the Stowe Area Association at 802.253.7321 or toll-free at 1.877.GO.STOWE. The Stowe Area Association can also help you to find lodging in the area should you wish to make this an entire weekend vacation. The Manchester in the Mountains Chamber of Commerce (802.362.2100) can help you find lodging and suggest other points of interest around the Southern Vermont Arts Festival. Exhibitors: if you did not receive your show information you can download the documents on the Exhibitors page. See you soon! May 16, 2008 2009 Dates Are Here! We are happy to announce Craftproducers’ full 2009 schedule. We experienced a couple of false starts on the dates but, thanks to feedback from our exhibitors, we now present the final version. Rather than just trying to fit the former UCE shows in Flemington and Syracuse into our existing schedule, we decided to review our entire calendar to see which dates made the most sense for each show. This was not an easy task as there are always multiple considerations. Any date has compromises; most weekends there are other shows. While we made a few changes, we are pleased with the results. The 2009 Schedule is as follows: Flemington Spring May 16 - 17 Adirondack May 29-31 Taste of Stowe July 24-26 Southern Vermont July 31 - August 2 Hildene Fall October 2- 4 Stowe Foliage October 9-11 Flemington Fall October 17-18 Syracuse December 4-6 Listed below is a synopsis of our reasoning: 1) Flemington Spring. In the past this show was held in mid April. The weather was shaky. It can be cool and rainy at this time of year. By moving into May, the weather should be better, warmer and with less chance of rain. 2) Adirondack. This show previously followed the Stowe Foliage show and was our last event of the year. The weather has been cool there the last two years. Switching the date will ensure warmer weather and less conflict with Hildene Fall. Hildene preceded this show by two weeks and drew on similar markets. The new date will facilitate attending the show in New Paltz the week before for those who come a long way. 3) Flemington Fall. This date later in the fall will be in solid foliage season in NJ. The weather is still warm and towns like Lambertville are busy with foliage tourists. This is our previous Adirondack date and it’s a great opportunity for Adirondack exhibitors to expand into the lucrative New Jersey market. It is also closer to the former Flemington fall weekend. Please mark your calendar now for the 2009 dates. The application will be out in early September. Remember you can preregister for the Flemington shows for only $350 for a 10X10 space. It only takes a $25.00 deposit to hold your space until next year. We are confident Flemington can be revived and become a major show. It will take your support to do so. As always, we will do our part. We appreciate the feedback from you in assisting us to choose the optimum dates. We firmly believe that 2009 will be a prosperous year for all of us.
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