34th Annual Chalk It Up! Chalk Art & Music Festival
Presented by Taco Bell Cantina Sacramento
Labor Day Weekend: Saturday, August 31 through Monday, September 2, 2024, from 10 am to 6 pm, at Fremont Park in Midtown Sacramento. Admission is FREE!
FIND ARTIST AND SPONSOR LOCATIONS: coming soon!
ADMISSION, PARKING, WHAT TO EXPECT:
- Admission to Chalk It Up is Free.
- Fremont Park is a full city block between 15th and 16th and P and Q Streets in Midtown, Sacramento. It’s one of Midtown’s most beautiful parks, with plenty of grass and big ol’ trees providing lots of shade. There is a wonderful playground for the kiddos with swings and climbing things. Feel free to bring a picnic blanket or camp chairs to make a day of it!
- PARKING: The S+P Parking Lot at 15th and R Streets is just one block away and will typically offer a special event rate of $15.00 per day for all-day parking for those who enter the lot between 6:00 am and 5:00 pm. If you enter before 6:00 am or after 5:00 pm you will default to their hourly rate. Street parking is very limited. Please pay careful attention to no-parking signs because violators will be ticketed and/or towed.
- PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: Thanks to our generous sponsor, SacRT, public transportation via bus and light rail is FREE for the weekend!
- Simply screenshot this flyer and show it to the bus or light rail operators and your transportation to and from the Chalk It Up Festival is FREE. Thank you, Sacramento Regional Transit!
CYCLING: A complimentary Bike Valet can be found on the 15th Street side of the park (tips encouraged). Thank you to Sutter Health for generously sponsoring the Bike Valet Parking provided by Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates!- Artists will begin their Chalk Art Murals on the sidewalks around Fremont Park either Friday afternoon or early Saturday morning and work on them over three days until their masterpieces are completed. Artists must complete their work by Noon on Monday.
- The festival activities inside the park – music, vendors, etc. – are open at 10:00 am and close at 6 pm on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday of Labor Day Weekend.
- CHALK IT UP STAGE Live local music will be performed on the Chalk It Up Stage each day. The Stage is under one of the big ol’ trees on the P Street side of the park, and there is ample lawn space for dancers and lots of shade. You are welcome to bring your camp chairs or picnic blankets.
- The Chalk It Up Drinks Tent is a 21-and-over space offering local beer, wine, cider, and non-alcoholic options and offering excellent views of the stage.
- Be sure to visit the best selfie spot in the park: the Chalk Art Wall, Sponsored by Dignity Health!
- Local food trucks and vendors will have all your festival favorites, from healthy options to frozen treats. We have a shaded picnic area with tables and chairs for you to take a load off and enjoy your meal.
- Artists, makers, and local small businesses will be set up to sell in their vendor booths throughout the park – support your local small, independent business community by getting a head start on your holiday shopping lists!
- The Chalk It Up Drinks Tent, aka “Drink It Up!” is where our 21-and-over guests (IDs required) can enjoy refreshments from some of our best local drinks businesses. There are many tables and chairs, a big shaded tent with fans, and a great view of the stage.
- All of the sidewalks on the exterior of the park are assigned to Chalk Artists to create their Chalk Art Murals. Be sure to visit the Chalk It Up Information Booth to pick up some free sidewalk chalk so that you can Chalk It Up on the interior sidewalks of the park!
- Bring your water bottles! Water refill stations provide complimentary filtered, chilled water all day long.
- The Chalk It Up Merch Tent is where you can purchase tickets for beverages in the Drinks Tent, premium sidewalk chalk, Chalk It Up t-shirts, and more. You can also learn more about our programs and make donations.
- The Sacramento Medical Reserve Corps will be there, offering first aid support and a cooling tent for anyone who feels overheated.
For 34 years, we have kept this festival free for the community because of the volunteer artists, musicians, workers, donors, and sponsors. It takes a village! By attending the festival, sponsoring a chalk artist, making a donation, patronizing the vendors and the drinks tent, or buying a Chalk It Up t-shirt, you are helping us keep this Sacramento tradition alive! Contact us if you’d like to learn more or get involved.
The 34th Annual Chalk It Up! Chalk Art & Music Festival is Labor Day Weekend!
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, August 31 – September 2, 2024, 10 am – 6 pm, at Fremont Park, 1515 Q Street, Midtown Sacramento.
Chalk It Up was first established in 1991 through the hard work of local artists and community art supporters. Now in its 34th year, the Chalk It Up! Chalk Art & Music Festival is a celebration of our region’s arts and artists. Over the 3-day festival hundreds of artists, musicians, local craft and food vendors, and volunteers, with the financial support of donors and sponsors, join hands to provide this fun – and FREE – festival, promoting community pride, civic participation, and social connection.
Artist Clifton Gold created this “Silly Sloth” chalk art mural for the 2023 Chalk It Up! Chalk Art & Music Festival with help from Jordan and Cameron (pictured on the right). With the artist’s permission, we are using his Silly Sloth as our 2024 Chalk It Up festival icon! We will see this sloth on our posters, signage, and t-shirts at the festival. Thank you, Clif!
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
The Chalk It Up! Chalk Art & Music Festival is a three-day celebration of local artists and the arts community — one of the last of the free, family-friendly festivals in Midtown Sacramento.
Since 1991, we have hosted a safe and clean festival at Fremont Park at 16th & Q Streets in Midtown Sacramento where the community can listen to live local musicians, patronize local craft, maker, and food vendors in the marketplace, and watch local artists turn the sidewalks around Fremont Park into colorful works of art. This is part performance art, as the artists are creating the work during the festival.
Community members come from throughout the greater Sacramento Valley region several times over the 3-day weekend to watch the art work come to life. Kids of all ages are inspired after a walk around the outside of the park to admire the work of these professional artists, so we supply buckets of sidewalk chalk for folks to use to experiment on the interior walkways of the park. The Chalk It Up Festival is a Sacramento tradition, a gift to the community, and we’ve kept it 100 percent free to the public for over 32 years.
CHALK ART
Street painting, using chalk as the medium, is an Italian tradition that is believed to have begun during the 16th century. It is called “Madonnari” because of their practice of reproducing the image of the Madonna (Our Lady). The early Italian street painters were travelers who would arrive in small towns and villages for Catholic religious festivals and transform the streets and public squares into temporary galleries for their works of art. The Chalk It Up Festival honors this tradition and celebrates the transient beauty of this medium.
