How to Grow a Festival from the Ground Up
As executive director of Sarasota Rising, Jeffery Kin is galvanizing the community around a new attraction to clinch Sarasota’s status as an international head-turner that doesn’t know the word season. He can no longer count up the meetings he’s held with local leaders in the arts, business development, and philanthropy. Those that produced new partnerships and enthusiastic support all seem to blur together like headlights in some long-exposure photo of a superhighway to November 10. That’s when Sarasota Rising will officially launch the Living Arts Festival in a weeklong extravaganza starring local performers, creatives, and organizations of every size and artistic discipline.
A handful of those meetings linger in Kin’s memory with several sharp details: Eye contact with the floor. Crossed arms and legs, with one ankle moving in a ponderous circle.
Now, Kin was raised on a farm in Ohio, so he knows a silo even when he can’t see one.
“Sarasota is full of entrepreneurial spirits who have started organizations from scratch. They’re wondering, ‘Why should we care about what you do?’” Kin says. “What our community is missing is that selfless, collaborative spirit that always approaches things with the attitude that my heart is full, my wallet is full, my bank account is full—even when it’s not.”
Enmeshed in the fabric of Sarasota’s arts community since 1991, Kin led The Players Centre for Performing Arts as the theater organization’s producing artistic director for 15 years. A consummate “theater kid,” Kin is blessed with tremendous gifts of positivity and relationship building. He’s experienced in the art of improvisation and knows it’s possible to build believable worlds with a heap of two-by-fours, hot glue, and generosity of spirit.
“I’m just somebody who some folks saw as the person who can make a performing arts festival happen,” Kin says. “Not bowing into the challenges, not accepting the negatives [but] pushing past the twirling foot and looking for what we all have in common—those are things that ring my bell.”
From November 10 through 17, the Living Arts Festival will focus a spotlight on local arts programming in the greater Sarasota area, which the tourism bureau has begun touting as “Florida’s Cultural Coast.” Sarasota Rising will bring the party vibe with a calendar of special events that unite arts organizations, sharing ideas and resources to create new experiences for Sarasota arts lovers. Some of the happenings include a rooftop party decked out in chalk art and Brazilian beats on opening night; “Rise and Shine Saturday,” a family-focused arts expo and community play-date; a multidisciplinary revival of the Embracing Our Differences art exhibit in the form of a walking tour at Historic Spanish Point; and closing ceremonies at the Circus Arts Conservatory, with awards for the festival’s best and brightest performances.
Beyond fostering collaboration and infusing the community with a burst of artistic activity well before the high season for Sarasota arts and culture, Kin sees enormous economic potential in bringing a new festival to town.
“The best thing ever was going to my first Florida Festivals and Events Association conference two years ago, and then I went to the International Festivals and Events Association conference,” Kin says. “I met people who have doctorate degrees in festival and event production. There are people in the world who realize that festivals are big money.”
Ultimately, Kin wants to see Sarasota become an irresistible magnet, not just for international visitors but for artists and creators as well.
“Call it adding spice to our stew,” Kin says. “Sarasota is a delicious stew, but we need to ramp things up with some outside influence.” Sarasota Rising’s “An Evening With…” productions have offered a taste of what Kin’s talking about. The most recent show featured Andrea McArdle, the singer and actor best known as Broadway’s first little orphan Annie. During her visit, Sarasota Rising organized a visiting tour of local schools and Boys and Girls Clubs.
“I kept thinking what an inspiration she’s going to be to these kids, knowing that at the age of 11 she was performing on an international platform, and now here she is, still performing and honing her craft,” Kin says. Through McArdle’s social media posts about the trip, Kin also discovered that adding spice benefits everyone at the table.
“She said, ‘I needed this trip more than they needed me. I forgot how many kids, to this day, know and remember me from the Annie original cast album. I forgot how important it is for me to give back,’” Kin says. “It was very interesting to bring in someone with such name recognition and have them respond, ‘I needed this more than they did, and I want to come back.’”
Over the coming months, while the Sarasota Rising team wraps up the inaugural Living Arts Festival with a spectacular bow, Kin is prepared to encounter a few more twirling ankles.
“Initially, there will always be that ‘Who is he? What does he want?’ reaction,” Kin says. “You know what? I want our region to be recognized for what it is. I want our region to be internationally known. In 10 years, I want the Living Arts Festival to be in line with Spoleto and Art Basel. I want people to be, like, ‘If you have a brain, and if you love the arts, you have to be in Sarasota that week. You will be amazingly satisfied with this arts immersion.’”
