Arts, Beats & Eats event organizers pleased with 2024 turnout

ROYAL OAK — Arts, Beats & Eats 2024 brought roughly 310,000 people to the streets of downtown Royal Oak from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2.

The event brings together businesses, musical performers and artists from all over the world each year on Labor Day weekend to end summer with a bang.

Event Producer Jon Witz said that this year attendance was down around 10% overall. However, Witz still thought the iconic festival was a roaring success.

“We’re really happy with the turnout, and the vibe and the fact that we had no major incidents,” he said.

Witz said that though attendance was down from last year’s 400,000 people, the event had some great turnout for new aspects of the event.

“The art fair seemed really steady. We expanded our emerging artist program, and then we also added dueling pianos into the art fair from 526 (Main), right here in Royal Oak,” he said. “Those were really well received. Then we also had live tattoo art. We thought the activity in the art fair was really strong.”

Artist Shelly Knupp, from Dayton, Ohio, was at the festival for the second year in a row selling her artwork. Knupp is the owner of Through the Fire, Fused Glass Creations LLC, and creates jewelry and fused glass sculptures.

“It’s kind of a crazy way to choose to live,” she said. “But it’s very gratifying to be able to be creative for a living.”

Knupp said she was interested in the different musical acts that were going to be playing, which ultimately convinced her to apply for a spot in the art fair.

Knupp said her experience at Arts, Beats & Eats was really long, but rewarding.

“You commit as an artist, you commit from your sign-up to be here from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. all four days,” she said.

Another well-received part of the event was the array of entertainment acts that the Detroit Institute of Arts provided. This year that included Revolution Chinese Yoyo, Detroit Puppet Theater, String Theory Theater, and more.

“These are higher-end family acts that were curated by the Detroit Institute of Arts and were just a really welcomed new addition,” Witz said.

Witz said that the attendance at the House of Dank installations went up by 20% from last year. This included both Dank Way and Dank Land, which was good in his opinion.

House of Dank promoter Olivia Mac said that the experience at the festival was great and she had an awesome time representing the House of Dank.

“It’s really cool; you get to meet a lot of different people,” she said.

The threat of weather was something Witz thinks played a factor in the lower numbers, saying that on Friday night, because there was a chance of rain, some of the musical acts were affected.

After Friday, Witz said, attendance went up.

“Cheap Trick was packed to capacity, Chevelle, Gin Blossoms, Dustin Lynch, Keith Sweat all performed really well,” he said. “Especially on Sunday and Monday when the temperatures moderated to the mid-70s, I mean, the festival was just running at full capacity.”

The amount of money that this year’s Arts, Beats & Eats event raised has not yet been released, but will be released in mid-October, according to Witz.