Event organizer Paul Anderson’s first La Quinta Art Celebration was nearly his last. Anderson, a former president of the board of directors for the Sausalito Art Festival and onetime Northern California weekly magazine publisher, is also the head of Scope Events, which was chosen in 2019 by Celebration’s board to produce the annual March event.
As Anderson labored through the early months of 2020 to produce a much more upscale, patron-focused event than had been produced previously, the news of the looming pandemic was dire.
“The world was in turmoil,” he says. “We hadn’t been touched yet in terms of cases. Over the past 37 years, the event had always been the week before the (Indian Wells) tennis tournament began. So all of a sudden, we’re in the middle of it. We’re having an amazing show and we’re looking at messages from the Riverside County Health Department and they’re saying everything is okay. We go through all four days. We closed the show Sunday at 5 p.m. and at 5:58 p.m., I got word that the tennis tournament had been canceled. We were the last outdoor fine art event or event of any kind that took place in California in 2020.”
The City of La Quinta was barely weaned when its first mayor, Fred Wolff, came up with the idea of an art festival to get the word out about the newest Coachella Valley community. The modest little event (its inaugural event took place around the pool at the old Desert Club) got a significant boost when a well-known local billionaire and thoroughbred horse breeder (“He created both Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.” “Who is Merv Griffin, Alex?”) stepped in to lend his support and endorsement. Not only did Griffin emcee and croon at the early festivals, but he often brought other celebrities to the event. Before he died in 2007, Griffin was named lifetime honorary chairman.
What was known prior to 2020 is the La Quinta Arts Festival had a number of locations before settling in at the park around the civic center. The festival compiled some impressive numbers from 1982 to 2019: Over 650,000 visitors and $57 million earned by artists in the sale of their art. Even more importantly, the success of the festival gave rise to a number of popular annual events, such as Blues and Brews and Art Under the Umbrellas. It was surprising, therefore, when festival organizers announced via their website in 2019 that the golden age of the festival had passed and because of certain factors having to do with growth and construction in the village near the civic center, the future of the festival was in grave doubt.
According to Kat Hughes, La Quinta Art Celebration’s Event Director, “The executive director (of La Quinta Arts Foundation) decided she no longer wanted to produce a show in 2020…for various reasons, she just felt it was time to give up the Arts Festival. The city was really taken back…because the Art Festival had been their premier event and they didn’t want to see that go.”
To continue the event, the city sent out RFPs and 14 potential producers responded. Given Anderson’s experience producing an art festival in Sausalito, as well as regular and enthusiastic attendance at the La Quinta Art Festival, he was the slam dunk choice. His first order of business was to find a new name for the event. “It’s kind of ironic,” he says. “In 1982 at the first La Quinta art event, it was called La Quinta Art Celebration.”
With the new name in place, Anderson’s next job was to convince the city to continue holding the event at the park. According to Anderson, the city thought the festival had outgrown the park and had another location they felt would be more appropriate. Anderson talked them out of it. “The La Quinta Civic Center Park is unparalleled,” he says. “I told the city council, ‘This is the most gorgeous place. If I’m going to be involved for the future, we’re using the park.’” Once the city council agreed, Anderson reimagined the event, wanting to give it better access and a more “upscale” vibe with better amenities. Among his many innovations was a new entrance and valet parking on both roads coming into the park so that older patrons don’t have as far to walk. He made an area where people could eat and relax and not be in the middle of the art show. There is a champagne bar and a bistro featuring beer from Stella Artois.
When it came time to plan for the 2021 show, it was clear that the pandemic still loomed too large to chance a March event. Anderson recalls asking Hughes when snowbirds usually returned to the desert. Her answer: November. “The bottom line was … here’s November and locals had been in their homes for a year and a half and the artists hadn’t had any shows for a year and a half, so we put the show together and opened the gate!”
Even with every safety protocol in place, enthusiasm among patrons and artists was extremely high. The return of La Quinta’s 40-year-old art event was such a resounding success that Anderson and Hughes have decided to hold it twice each season in November and March.
“It turned out to be one of the best shows we’ve ever put together because people were so happy,” says Anderson, who is busily preparing for the upcoming Nov. 10-13 show featuring artists such as photographer Lisa Kristine, glass artist Marcus Thesing, and sculptor Reuben Fasani. “The patrons would walk by and say, ‘It’s so wonderful to be outside’ and the artists did extremely well and, therefore, we did extremely well. It’s just one of those things where goodness continues to build upon goodness.”
