Pulse - Celebrating the Arts

First Fridays in Ballston Spa was launched in 2004 by the Strolling Village Artisans, but has since been taken over by the Ballston Spa Business & Professional Association.

“It is something we do consistently year round that brings in new people and regulars each time,” Cliff Baum, vice president of the Business & Professional Association and owner of Coffee Planet, said. “It is a really great event.”

This month’s festivities will be held Friday, Oct. 3 from 6 to 9 p.m. and will feature visual art displays, music and various exhibits in 15 different venues.

“It truly is a diverse offering of art that we have in the village for the night,” Baum said.

According to Baum, the celebration typically draws around 200 people to the village’s downtown district and each venue usually receives a couple hundred people as well.

“We have a great participation from businesses and residents in the village,” he said.

Customary events include music at the Coffee Planet and the Whistling Kettle, including the outdoor film festival that kicked-off in June of 2007 at Wiswall Park.

This month’s feature film will be a screening of the apocalyptic horror classic The Last Man on Earth (1964) starring Vincent Price. The film is based on Richard Matheson’s classic novel “I Am Legend,” which was recently remade starring Will Smith. The film starts at 8 p.m. and according to festival coordinators might be too scary for younger children, so they have arranged to air classic Fleischer Brothers Superman cartoons from 7 to 8 p.m. Last month’s film drew approximately 150 people, so it is suggested that people who plan on attending arrive early to get a good spot.

Like Ballston Spa, Saratoga Springs also offers an arts night of their own, only theirs is held on the first Saturday of each month.

The Spa City event was the first arts night created in the Capital Region that aside from Ballston Spa now includes celebrations in Schenectady, Albany and Troy.

The event originally took place on Thursday nights as a partnership between the Saratoga County Arts Council, local galleries and downtown businesses in an attempt to create more traffic downtown. However, it was moved to Saturday nights in June 2007 because event coordinators felt what made their arts night unique was the amount of tourists that frequent the city.

“Aside from local and regional residents attending the event there are also out-of-towners,” Joel Reed, Executive Director of the Arts Council, said. “During the week people who visit are just focused on getting into town and settling in, but by Saturday they are ready to get out and see what Saratoga has to offer.”

Reed said the event has been a big hit since they started hosting it on Saturday nights, bringing in more than 150 people to the Arts Council alone.

“There are some people who just come to the arts council, but there are many others that move from gallery to gallery throughout the night,” Reed said.

Saratoga Springs will host its monthly arts night Saturday, Oct. 4 from 5 to 8 p.m. in 17 city venues, including the Arts Center Gallery, Circus Café and Beekman Street Studios.

“We hope everyone can come out and help support local art,” Reed said.

Both events are free and open to the public. For more information and a full list of events for this weekend’s arts night celebrations, visit: www.ballston.org/First-Fridays/ or www.saratoga-arts.org/.