In order to tap into our incredibly diverse and active arts community, the city and region should work to create a festival or crawl that unites some of the different events that comprise the Fargo Arts scene, and to celebrate the river as a place of renewal (and not just disaster). The Fargo Film Festival, different cultural festivals (Scandinavian, Celtic), and the crafts fair could join forces with the City of Fargo to create something that might look like a regional Folklorama (http://www.folklorama.ca/).

A recurring summer/winter event or set of events centered around the river might help the city planners connect some of the plans for venues along the Red River with the community push for both recreation and arts. There have been numerous calls for a signature performing arts venue along the river to both aid in flood protection and to create a signature landmark that incorporates Fargo-Moorhead's premiere natural feature, the Red River.

Instead of waiting for the venue to pop up, let's create a community-wide event (maybe even tied into Trollwood's season?) and drive demand for an arts heart to the city.

We already have some of the support for this from the arts and the news community. We've already got studio crawls, culture crawls like the Celtic Crawl, and a Craft fair. Let's just help them make it more widely known!