Now in its 20th year, Artisphere continues to break its own attendance record, with an estimated 92.5 thousand visitors in 2023. With consistent growth in attendance, we continue to bring arts, culture, and a unique experience to the Upstate year after year.
The Story of Artisphere
Founded in 2003, Artisphere’s mission is to create a nationally recognized Fine Arts festival that enhances the quality of life and economic vitality in South Carolina. The 20th Anniversary of Artisphere in 2024 was a huge success. Applications reached just under 1100, artists’ sales were reached 2.6 million total, attendance neared 100,000 and economic impact grossed an astounding $14.1 million.
This year, we are thrilled to bring the 21st annual Artisphere festival back to Main Street the weekend of May 9-11th, 2025.
Partnerships are a core element of Artisphere’s success, and the festival has a history of collaborating with a host of Greenville’s performance groups and venues. In 2009, we inaugurated special performance awards, underwritten by the Fred Collins Foundation, and have since distributed $130,000 to arts groups participating in our Local Performing Arts Showcase. Artisphere recruits local non-profit arts organizations to volunteer during the festival weekend and provides them with a portion of festival proceeds. Since 2005, Artisphere has donated over $275,000 to local groups like SCCT, Greenville Chorale, SCGSA&H and more.
Other key components of festival programming are educational collaborations that reach a diverse age range from young children to young adults and budding arts professionals. Kidsphere pairs students from SCGSA&H with festival children to create free crafts. Clemson University’s STEAM Exhibit and the University of South Carolina’s Art of Healthy Living Exhibit instruct young festival goers in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics as well as Health Sciences. The Emerging Festival Artist Scholarship program underwrites costs for two to three Greenville artists without festival exhibition experience to be a part of Artist Row.
Artisphere has grown into a centerpiece of Greenville’s cultural calendar and has distinguished itself as both a national and regional destination while generating a total economic impact of nearly $9.1 million in 2019. The festival is one of the country’s top art shows. It has been named the Best Overall Arts Fair by ArtFairCalendar.com (the #1 website for art fair event listings) and landed at the #3 spot in USA Today’s 10BEST Reader’s Choice Contest for Best Art Festival in 2015. Greg Lawler’s Art Fair Sourcebook consistently ranks Artisphere in the TOP10 out of 600 festivals across the country, and readers of Sunshine Artists magazine regularly put Artisphere among the 100 Best Fine Arts Shows in the country.
