COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The Columbus Arts Festival is welcoming nearly 500,000 guests to Downtown this weekend for more than 200 visual artists, three stages for performances and dozens of food vendors.

The festival is running from 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Friday, 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday at the Scioto Mile riverfront, 233 S. Civic Center Drive. Artists with paintings, ceramics, jewelry, wearables, leather goods, photography and more will line the streets for one of the most highly acclaimed arts festivals in the nation.

Arts, food and music

Performance is a cornerstone of the festival with musicians, dance, theater and spoken word at Genoa Park, Big Local Arts Stage and the Word is Art and Acoustic Lounge. The Genoa Park stage will host a Fashion as Art runway show with Columbus designs followed by local neo-funk group MojoFlo on Friday.

Pop group Ghost Shirt and Chicago-based indie rock trio Dehd are performing on Saturday. Columbus Children’s Theatre, rock group Dynamo Fuzz and Columbus Modern Dance Company will also take the festival stage this weekend. View the performance schedule here.

  • Crowds of art lovers swarm a stretch of Arts Festival tents on Main Street. (Courtesy Photo/David Heasley)
  • A central Ohio band draws Arts Fest attendees with their performance on the Big Local Stage. (Courtesy Photo/Joe Maiorana)
  • Violinist Sean Perry busks for tips to fund an upgraded fiddle and grad school tuition. (Courtesy Photo/David Heasley)

Festival-goers can visit the live mural painting, where 12 Columbus-area artists are creating murals along the fences surrounding Bicentennial Park on the east side of the river. A teen art gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, and 18 artists from the Emerging Festival Artist are having their work showcased throughout the weekend.

The arts festival is also home to several food vendors. This year’s eateries include Graeters, Mikey’s Late Night Slice, Kona Ice, Tortilla Street Food, Chicken Mac Truck, Philly Pretzel Factory, Pizza Cottage and more. View the whole list of food vendors here.

In addition, High Bank Distillery is offering a trio of boozy slushies available at three beverage booths at the Festival and Rhinegeist is offering a hoppy wheat ale named “Sketch” especially for the Columbus Arts Festival, available at the beer garden and select beverage booths.

  • Hungry festival attendees seek comfort food from local Argentine food truck, Barroluco. (Courtesy Photo/Nick Dekker)
  • Two festival attendees browse the selection of prints in a landscape photographer’s booth. (Courtesy Photo/Greg Bartram)

Parking and road closures

There are numerous parking structures and metered spaces on surrounding city streets and surface lots on both the east and west sides of the river. Festival-goers can pay for parking with their phone by downloading the ParkColumbus app, texting “park” to 77223, or scanning a QR code, found on signage throughout downtown, to pay online.

Road closures in downtown Columbus will begin on Wednesday at noon and be in effect until Monday at 6 a.m., covering the two days before the festival and the entire weekend. A majority of roads in the southwest section of downtown will be closed. A map of the closures can be seen below.

Learn more about which streets are closing for the arts festival here.