Saratoga Arts Takes Over First Night

Saratoga Arts Takes Over First Night Saratoga from YMCA
Program Transitions to New Management

Saratoga Arts (formerly the Saratoga County Arts Council) and YMCA Saratoga have announced that First Night Saratoga is officially under new management. The popular Saratoga Springs New Year’s Eve festival, run for fourteen years by the Y, is now under the umbrella of Saratoga Arts.

First Night Saratoga provides families from across the Saratoga and Capital Regions an opportunity to celebrate the new year with a 5K run, live music, storytelling, improv theater, and other performances in an inexpensive, friendly and alcohol-free environment, typically drawing between 10,000 and 12,000 revelers to downtown Saratoga Springs.

After overseeing the program for fourteen years, in the process growing it into one of the most durable and successful First Nights in the country, the Y decided to seek a non-profit arts organization to take it over. YMCA Saratoga CEO Jim Letts explained that the Y needed to  focus all of its energies on its core mission and annual appeal “We Build People.”

Saratoga Arts Executive Director expressed an early interest in the program. “Saratoga Arts is all about making the arts accessible to the broadest range of community members – First Night Saratoga is a perfect fit for us,” Reed said. A series of meetings between Reed, Letts, Saratoga Arts’ Board members, and the Y’s executive staff, and other research and conversations, led both organizations to conclude that the program is viable, successful, and positioned to be sustained through the transition.

The YMCA and Saratoga Arts will continue working closely on the project through the year, and the current First Night–YMCA staff will soon be working directly for Saratoga Arts. The Y is also facilitating Saratoga Arts’ connections with First Night’s sponsors, vendors, and artists.

For its part, Saratoga Arts will bring the energy and creativity of Saratoga’s major, year-round, community-based arts organization to Saratoga Springs’ biggest downtown arts festival. “We expect the festival to continue as it always has, only more so,” said Saratoga Arts’ Joel Reed. “We look forward to increased opportunities for our member artists and for the community to experience the best of all the art forms our region has to offer.”  

Between now and New Year’s Eve, there will be plenty of opportunities for community volunteering and involvement – look for announcements about that soon, and save Friday, December 31, 2010 for Saratoga Arts’ First Night Saratoga.