Art All Night in Trenton a Red Hot Success

by Alice Magdziak • June 22, 2015 • Arts & Entertainment, Events, Mercer • Comments (0) • 2397

Art All Night was held in Trenton this weekend and if you haven’t gone before, you should get it on your calendar for next year already. It’s held on the third weekend of June and this year’s was the ninth annual festival. It goes from 3:00pm on Saturday to 3:00pm on Sunday. Yes, it really is all night!

Art All Night is held in the historic 50,000 square foot Roebling Wire Works factory building on Clinton Street in Trenton as well as in Millyard Park next door. It’s free to attend and free to submit one of your own works of art to display in their giant gallery inside the factory.

If you love any kind of art, it’s bound to be represented somewhere on the grounds. Look at a few of the artists at work and art on display that we saw while we were there and you can begin to imagine the range of work that is showcased at Art All Night.

As you can begin to see, there is live music on multiple stages inside and out, interactive art exhibits, a film festival, art lectures, masterclasses, really cool kids art activities and lots of food tents and trucks outside keeping the all night revelers fed. It really is an amazing night of friendly faces and cool modern art of all genres. It was pretty hot and humid in the 24 hours of this year’s event and I was impressed with the genial atmosphere throughout the whole event despite everyone being pretty sweaty.

The Chambersburg section of Trenton comes alive with all the visitors. There’s plenty of free parking in a lot across the street from the park and it’s very easy to get to right off Route 129.

Art All Night is produced by Artworks, Trenton’s Downtown Visual Art Center, and has 5 major goals:

Empower artists who would normally not have an opportunity to showcase their artwork in public with a venue to do so;
Build community by encouraging people of all different lifestyles, races and incomes to interact;
Foster social networking between creative people who have an interest in improving Trenton;
Showcase Trenton’s great architecture and development-ripe buildings; and
Market Artworks’ classes, exhibitions, events, and volunteer opportunities.

I think they did a great job supporting all five of those goals! Art All Night uses hundreds of volunteers to help run the venue, register artists, do maintenance and prep for the venue. The live music is also donated by all the bands performing. It’s a labor of love for people who love art and love Trenton.

Art All Night is generously supported by quite a few big supporters and donors but they also take donations (completely voluntarily) from guests. It’s an amazing night of all-things art and you should join us next year!

Check out all the pictures from our visit to Art All Night in Trenton: