This October’s second annual Arts Alive LI Festival is a month-long celebration when arts and culture take center stage in Long Island’s premier performing arts centers, museums, art venues, fine dining destinations and diverse cultural sites.
Arts Alive LI is a region-wide collaboration that promotes Long Island as a vibrant, diverse, inclusive place where people want to live, work and visit.
The Web site, artsaliveli.org, continues year-round as a source for information and exchange about arts and culture on Long Island. Arts Alive LI is at the heart of Long Island Arts Alliance’s mission to promote the region’s arts and cultural institutions.
The LIAA is a network of the region’s not-for-profit arts and arts education organizations, promoting awareness of and participation in Long Island’s world-class arts and cultural institutions.
Formed in 2003, LIAA offers diverse support services to arts organizations, serves as an advocate for art education in our schools and collaborates on strategies for economic development and community revitalization.
The seeds for LIAA were planted in 2002 when the Long Island Association, the region’s largest business and civic organization, asked prominent community leaders to examine Long Island’s assets, growth opportunities and challenges. Its arts and culture committee, made up of heads of local arts institutions, found that no measure had yet been taken of the arts’ regional economic impact.
As a study was planned, the committee created an Island-wide alliance of not-for-profit arts organizations to actively address the challenges facing the art community. The result was the formation of Long Island Arts Alliance.
The study, conducted by noted economist Dr. Pearl Kamer, found that the not-for-profit art community contributes nearly $200 million to Long Island’s economy each year. The LIAA then began a campaign to enhance media coverage of art activities on Long Island.
Teaming with public television station WLIW/21, the Alliance encouraged the development of a new weekly arts magazine show, “Ticket,” which aired for more than five years, giving Long Island audiences a weekly program celebrating the best in Long Island arts and culture.
LIAA has since developed other programs designed to recognize new talent, support arts education, and boost the visibility of Long Island’s thriving art community. In 2012, LIAA launched Arts Alive LI and held the first annual month-long Arts Alive LI Festival to coincide with October’s National Arts and Humanities Month.
