It has been years since I've been to the Three Rivers Arts festival but decided to take advantage of a nice sunny day and explore some of it. Please note that if you park in the Stanwix Street garage you will be charged $15.00 for event parking. If you move over one block to the 6th St garage across from the Byrum theater then you'll pay the typical weekend $7.00.
The venue is all over the downtown area so we limited ourselves to the artist's market and caught a few musicians here and there. They now have the area between Stanwix St and the street just before the Fort PItt Bridge approach roped off so you can see the weekend artists in that area.
The place is packed as usual. Some of the vendors I have seen from before while others are new and sell everything from paintings to wearable art to jewelry. Much is expensive but some places are reasonable. You basically pay for what you get.
The Wyndham hotel has a covered area set up for food and drinks provided you stay on their property. All around the festival are set up food stands which include my all time favorite lobster burger as well as lemonade, ice cream and the usual fare.
Once you cross over to Point state park there were more vendors from the market surrounding the area by the bridge underpass. Along this side of Stanwix St is the main food court where the food is overpriced and fair. I bought a lemonade for myself and my daughter and they were just barely cold. What can one expect in this heat?
Gone were sitting areas. You now must bring a blanket since the festival stage is in that same area.
The place is jammed packed with people as is typical the case so it is a bit hard to move from vendor to vendor. Still I find their work interesting and ended up buying my daughter a lithograph.
With all the walking and standing it is just a bit too much for me to see the juried exhibitions but i did manage to get a picture of some art under the portal bridge.
They do offer entertainment at certain times during the day and they do have evening shows.
It's truly worth a visit just to see it and for once we did not have to deal with rain. The festival lasts 10 days only. The artist's market changes constantly so there will be new vendors later on in the week.