A Taste of Our Cultural Scene

Arts Abound

Northeast Indiana boasts towns and cities that showcase the creativity and combined talents of many different walks of life. We have a truly original flavor. Are you ready to experience life in the region?

Sometimes all you need is a spark of creativity. We have that here. No matter how much you enjoy your career, the memos, emails, and meetings can turn dull. We all need culture and diversity. An opportunity to experience the new and novel.  Enter the Downtown Arts Campus in Fort Wayne’s Cultural District.

The Cultural District is the place you go when you want to see new faces and meet new neighbors. It’s the kind of place you go when you feel the need to try new foods, listen to music you have never heard before, or see a performance you never could have dreamed of. 

The Arts Campus has welcomed a new regional tradition: Taste of the Arts. Taste of the Arts, a one-day festival in late August, is a celebration of music, food, art, dance, and theater, but it doesn’t stop there —it adds a taste of local flavor.

At Taste of the Arts, you can visit the community-created-art exhibition. You can buy photography, paintings, pottery, and jewelry from diverse regional artists and even get to know poets, nonprofit leaders, and youth-theater companies.

The event has everything you need, from the ballet to a gallery opening, but the real appeal is the local food. Irish pubs. Asian fare. Midwestern barbecue. Curbside fine dining. If you’re hungry, Taste of the Arts features a diverse selection of cuisine from more than 30 regional restaurants.

Taste of the Arts has a full weekend of family fun that ends with Dessert, the official after-party featuring local bands and area restaurants serving up music, food and drinks. It’s the perfect party for relaxing and soaking up the vibrant culture.

Arts United’s website includes the Arts & Culture Forecast, an events calendar with eight categories of events, as well as ArtsTix, a one-stop shop for purchasing tickets to performances by many Arts United–member groups. 

Did You Know?

• The expanding Arts Campus is carrying out a vision 50 years in the making—bringing together theaters, museums, a cinema, studios, galleries, and more in a few walkable blocks of downtown Fort Wayne.
• Arts United awards grants—grants that supported more than 70 arts organizations in 2011, resulting in 13,400 arts activities. And in 2012 alone, more than 725,000 patrons experienced projects funded by Arts United!
• The Voices of Unity Choir is a regional treasure that’s about more than just performance. It inspires young people to live successfully and dream big. Like world-champion big.
• The Fort Wayne Ballet, Dance Collective, Youtheatre, and Philharmonic, as well as the Civic Theatre, offer unique programming with opportunities for engagement for patrons and participants at all levels.
• With projects like the Decatur Sculpture Tour Purdue University Fort Wayne’s innovative Sculpture with Purpose initiative, you’ll find public art throughout our region.