As I mentioned in earlier articles, the Austin Area Commission for the Arts is expanding beyond the programming at the Historic Paramount Theatre.

We oversee the Austin ArtWorks Festival and soon the new downtown art center. This article will now feature updates from those three programs, as well as sharing information on the latest trends in the arts.

Austin ArtWorks Festival

Thank you all for making the second annual Austin ArtWorks Festival a success. We had 6,500 people attend the Festival and 1,100 attend the concert at Marcusen Park.

These attendees helped sell more than $27,000 in artwork. Pretty exciting numbers for a still relatively new festival.

Commemorative concert posters are available for sale at the Historic Paramount Theatre, as well as Purchase Award posters of Eric Anfinson’s The Golden Fish. Games People Play also has ArtWorks T-shirts and hats available for purchase at its store.

Historic Paramount Theatre

The Fabulous Armadillos, who brought the Austin area the incredible Takin’ It To The Limit: Eagles Tribute Show, have been working for more than a year on their Pink Floyd Tribute show Floydian Slip.

The show premiered in St. Cloud at the 700-seat Paramount Theater for 3 sold-out nights to absolutely incredible reviews, and will be at the Historic Paramount Theatre in Austin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 14.

The concert features incredible lighting, video projection and effects and includes the entire Dark Side Of The Moon album start to finish as well as many songs from “The Wall” and “Wish You Were Here.”

Tickets can be purchased online at paramounttheatre.org or by calling 434-0934.

Downtown art center

Committees are forming to create the downtown art center. Our first location choice is the old bank building located at the corner of Main Street North and Second Ave. NE. The Building Committee has been working with Joseph Construction on an estimate to remodel the space.

Once we get those numbers we will finalize a sustainable business plan. We are still looking for volunteers to move this project forward.

Please email director@paramounttheatre.org or call 507-434-0934 if you are interested.

If you want to see the space in the near future, please join the Austin Area Foundation at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 10 at  5 p.m. when they host the Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours in the building.