June 15-16, 2024 Saturday 10 am - 6 pm; Sunday 10 am - 4 pm

Melgaard Park

Applications for the 2024 Arts in the Park will be available in January 2024.  If you were an exhibitor at the 2023 show, you will automatically receive an application in the mail mid-January.  You can apply online or by mail using the paper application you received in the mail or can download below.  If you wish to be on the mailing list, please email us at ArtsInThePark@nvc.net.  Online applications will also be available mid-January, 2024.

For over forty years, exhibitors have lined the pavement within Melgaard Park with their handcrafted wares on the third full weekend in June. Each year, this juried event attracts exhibitors from over a dozen states. It is estimated that over 20,000 people go through the park during the two-day event. Arts in the Park features fine and folk art, entertainment and a wide variety of food items.

When the Aberdeen Arts Festival started in 1976, attendees were encouraged to “spend a happy day in the park”. Attendance at the first festival was estimated between 3,000 and 4,000. Pat Meachem Fries designed the original logo. Betsy Rice, the late Belva Duncan, and the late Beth Wray were the first general chairwomen. Advertising in those early years included young boys walking up and down Main Street wearing sandwich boards and half-gallon milk cartons with the logo printed on its side-panels. By the second year, almost 80 exhibitors were registered to be a part of the Aberdeen Arts Festival.

Throughout the years, the general public referred to the event as “Arts in the Park” even though the formal name was the “Aberdeen Arts Festival.” In 1998, the planning committee made up of volunteers that organized the event each year, started the process of turning the event over to the Aberdeen Area Arts Council. In 1999, the Aberdeen Area Arts Council voted to change the name to “Arts in the Park” and also introduced a new logo.