The three-day festival, which started in 2007, offered 108 events throughout the city's diverse performance venues and exhibit spaces, which was an increase from 34 events hosted during the festival's inaugural year.

This year's ArtsFest was a grand celebration of music, dance, visual art, film, theatre and literary art. "We had enough evidence from last year to stay committed to our mission and the concept of illuminating all of the arts equally," ArtsFest president Marie Glotzbach said.

Another major component for the creation of the festival was to help expose local artists by giving them the chance to showcase their talents. Artists like Celtic bluegrass band The McKrells, painter Frankie Flores and theatre company the Lake George Opera at Saratoga, were all given the opportunity to display their art on a variety of stages.

"We received a fabulous response in terms of the energy, excitement and anticipation for the programming we had this year." Goltzbach said.

Aside from local artists, festival coordinators also acknowledged the need to bring in nationally recognized performers, including the Martha Graham Dance Company, Gerald Clayton, Dancing with Horses and the Boys and Girls Choir of Harlem Alumni Ensemble

"This year we recognized the need to add top notch artists to the festival," Goltzbach said. "The artists we decided to bring in might not be of interest to the mainstream arts advocate, but to the peripheral arts enthusiast it's something very special."

The festival also offered the opportunity for local high school students to showcase their talents throughout the course of the weekend with events like the Teen Band Bash and performances by the Saratoga Children's Chorus and the Saratoga Springs Youth Jazz Orchestra.

"It gives young people the chance to get their work seen, and speaking as a young artist when you get the opportunity to perform in front of people, it inspires you to get better," Derek Montanye, Saratoga Springs high school student and guitarist for rock band Hero of Day, said.

Aside from offering a stage for local, regional and national artists, the annual festival also provided a chance for local businesses to get involved. Last year, 39 businesses took part in the three-day event while 80 businesses got involved in this year's festival. Glotzbach contributed much of the success of getting more businesses involved to Christel and Colin MacLean-founding ArtsFest board members and owners of Circus Café.

"They were instrumental in getting downtown businesses informed and engaged in the festival," Goltzbach said.

Christel MacLean said the festival has seen huge growth over the course of the last year and that it has been fantastic for the whole community, including local businesses because of the street traffic it generates downtown.

"It is growing and growing and what is wonderful is that so many different parts of the community are taking part in the event," she said.

Due to the enthusiasm received from last year's ArtsFest, organizers had decided not to change much in terms of how they presented this year's festival.

"We learned that we were on the right track and that the desire and support for this kind of a festival was definitely here," She said.

According to Glotzbach, the sale of ARTSPASS had doubled since last year's event. She also noted that the ARTSPASS was good for the entire arts season-allowing pass holders to receive discounts at local arts organizations throughout the year.

The 2009 SaratogaArtsFest has been scheduled for June 12-14 and applications to participate in the future event will be available online August 1 at: www.saratogaartsfest.org.

"This is for the long term," Glotzbach said. "It's great for the artists and the community."