Theater Puget Sound reports the inaugural year of Arts Crush was a success in giving the arts back to the audience. The festival delivered on its four overarching goals: engaging community, creating access, inspiring creativity and building audiences.Arts Crush took place during the month of October 2010 throughout the Puget Sound region. It involved more than 200 arts organizations of all shapes and sizes from as far north as Bellingham to as far south as Olympia. There are more than 350 Arts Crush events and or offers throughout the month more than 10,000 patrons participated directly in the festival.

Some interesting patron demographics from the first year include:
62% were new patrons to their selected arts organization.
61% of patrons were under the age 45.
24% indicated an ethnicity other than white, non-Hispanic.
36% of patrons had annual household income under $50,000.

Participation by discipline was as follows:
36% theater
17% music
16% visual
11% dance
10% literary
7% arts agencies
6% multidisciplinary

The purpose of Arts Crush is to connect artists and audiences with invigorating new experiences at hundreds of events across the Puget Sound region. Spotlighting a different discipline each week the festival features opportunities to participate in theater music literature dance visual art and more. Arts Crush is managed and produced by theater Puget Sound in cooperation with the consortium of arts leaders from various arts disciplines throughout the region.

With a successful inaugural program concluded Theater Puget Sound has announced the second annual Arts Crush to be held during the month of October 2011. For more information on Arts Crush contact festival director Sam Read at 206 – 770 – 0370 or Sam@tpsonline.com.  

The Arts Alliance of Downtown Olympia will be supporting local theater programs for the upcoming Arts Crush event.