For the second year in a row, the Broad Ripple Art Fair won’t be celebrating its 50th anniversary.
The Indianapolis Art Center this week announced on Facebook that it had “made the difficult decision” to cancel the 2021 event “due to the uncertainties related to the ongoing COVID pandemic.”
The event had been scheduled to run May 15-16 and had a name sponsor, insurer OneAmerica.
The Broad Ripple Art Fair is a major annual fundraiser for the art center, which estimated it lost $350,000, about 10% of its annual income, from the cancellation of 2020 event.
The art fair typically drew more than 15,000 visitors and up to 200 artists and artisans to the Broad Ripple Cultural District.
“As a beacon for artists and art appreciators from all over the country as well as being the Art Center’s largest annual fundraiser, we understand the significance the art fair has to our community,” the center said in a written statement. “We are hard at work on planning for a new event that will safely celebrate our local creative community this spring along with new programming to activate the campus throughout the summer.”
The art center launched an online marketplace late last year in an effort to raise fund and help artists who were struggling because of the pandemic.