Volunteer Application

Thank you for your interest in being a volunteer at the Utah Arts Festival! It takes more than 1,000 volunteers to help us build, run and tear down the event and there’s no way the Festival would happen without volunteers! You are truly the life blood of the Utah Arts Festival!

» To sign up for shifts and duties, please proceed directly to the online Volunteer Application or review our Volunteer Opportunities below.

Our Volunteer Coordinator, Miss Kaye (she is a school teacher!) and Assistant Coordinator, Thom Christman, work closely with a group of dedicated Volunteer Captains to help our volunteers have a great experience in their duties on site. Some of our captains and volunteers having been returning to the Festival year after year as volunteers…some have been with us for 15+ years. In fact, Miss Kaye has been with the Festival for 21 years!

Get your office-mates or a group of friends together and come down and take a shift pouring sodas, face painting or working as booth sitters for the Artist Marketplace. It’s a great way to get involved in the largest summertime community event! There’s a list of job duties and descriptions in this section and the shifts are usually four hours.

Volunteer Opportunities

The Festival has volunteer opportunities that suit just about anyone’s skill level and interest. Particularly interested in the visual arts? Be a booth sitter at the Artist Marketplace, giving the artist a break to get a bit of rest or food. Handy with a hammer or screwdriver? Help us build the event or tear it down! Check out the list and descriptions below and come play with us!

Set Up – Build the Festival

Wear your grubbies and help us build the Festival! We start the Friday before the event begins and work right up to the opening day on Thursday to get everything ready for our guests. Help us build the stages, put scaffold together for the entrance gates, hang fabric and signs, set up booths, paint. If you’re not afraid of a little hard physical labor come and join us!

Shifts: 8 am – noon / 1 pm – 5 pm / 6 pm – dark (ages 16+)

Sports Medicine Center of Utah Art Attack 5K/1K Fun Run

Support the Arts Festival by helping out with our annual fund raising event, the Art Attack 5K Fun Run! If you don’t mind getting out of bed early on a Saturday morning, we can use you! The event takes place the Saturday of the Festival and starts at 8 a.m. We need volunteers to help with onsite registration, handing out t-shirts and packets and working at the water station. The nice thing about volunteering for the run is you’re finished by 10:30 am!

Artist Marketplace Booth Sitter

Enjoy meeting people? This is a great way to help out our visual artists by giving them a break in their long day, refill their water bottles or get a bite to eat. You don’t have to sell their art, you just hang out in their booth and tell the patrons the artist will be back in a few minutes.

Shifts: Noon – 3 pm / 3 pm – 6 pm / 6 pm – 9 pm

Information Booth

If you’ve been coming to the Arts Festival for years, share some of your knowledge with fellow patrons at the Information Booth. We’ll have Festival maps, Festival guides, performance schedules and names of visual artists and their booth locations in the Marketplace available for our guests.

Shifts: Noon – 3 pm / 3 pm – 6 pm / 6 pm – 9 pm

Fear No Film Short Film & Video Festival

Love film? Come help out with the Film Program inside the City Library’s auditorium. Films run from noon to 11 pm and volunteers work closely with Topher Horman, the film coordinator with anything he needs to help make his program run smoothly.

Shifts: Noon – 3 pm / 3 pm – 6 pm / 6 pm – 9 pm

Beverage Booths

This is a great opportunity for groups, friends, or organizations to volunteer together. We need volunteers to pour sodas, beer and wine. You must be 21 years old to pour beer or wine and at least 16 to pour sodas.

Shifts: Noon – 4 pm / 3:30 pm – 7:30 pm / 7 pm – 11 pm

TARGET Art Yard – Face Painting – Toddler Zone

If you’re a kid at heart this is where we need your talents! Come help the nonprofit organizations as they create hands-on projects for children to work on at the TARGET Art Yard. The Face Painting Booth is a great way to get your kids involved with volunteerism! Have your 12 year old (or older) get a group of friends together and come down and help paint faces! Enjoy spending time with the littlest patrons of the arts? Help out at the Toddler Zone – the tiny place for tiny tikes to hang out and just play, play, play!

Shifts: Noon – 3 pm / 3 pm – 6 pm / 6 pm – 9 pm (ages 12+)

The Mad Hatter

Let your creative juices flow! The Mad Hatter Project is an interactive program where patrons have a chance to participate in the creative process!

We’ll have all the makings available for you to create your own party hat! Choose from more than 2,000 unique paper bags – all hand painted and ready to adorn with ribbons, sequins, flowers, and beads to make it a one-of-a-kind chapeau!

Shifts: Noon – 3 pm / 3 pm – 6 pm / 6 pm – 9 pm (ages 12+)

Strike (Tear Down)

Yes, it only takes us 2 days to strike the entire event! Come help us take everything down and put it away for next year. This job involves lots of physical labor.

Shifts: 8 am – noon / 1 pm – 5 pm / 6 pm – dark (ages 16+)

Too many choices?

Just tell us when you can volunteer and we’ll find a spot for you. Click here to sign up online.

Volunteer Procedures

Check In

Check in at the Volunteer Headquarters (located on 400 South west of main gate between State Street and 200 E) and our Volunteer Captains will take you to your assignment. Please arrive 15 minutes before your scheduled shift time. Wear comfortable shoes and sunscreen. It’s usually hot in Utah in the summertime, but we have been known to get an occasional summer thunderstorm rolling through in the late afternoons, so bring a light jacket if the forecast is for rain. Please leave your valuables in your car or at home as we do not have lockers.

For set up, strike and Art Attack 5K/1K shifts, please check in at the on-site Festival offices located on the north side of the Leonardo Building.

Parking

We encourage our volunteers to use TRAX to get to the Festival. TRAX generously extends their hours of operation during the Festival to coincide with our hours; so you can take TRAX and it will drop you off right in front of the Festival’s Main Entrance on 400 S and 200 E. We have free TRAX passes available for our volunteers we’ll be happy to send you a pass with your confirmation packet.

Amenities

All volunteers get free admission into the Festival on the day they work. Working a late shift? Come down early and check in at the Volunteer HQ, enjoy the Festival and then report back for duty. Volunteers also receive a Volunteer T-shirt, pin and coupon for a non-alcoholic beverage.

Sign Up Now!

INDIVIDUALS: Click here to fill out an online volunteer application.

GROUPS: If you wish to schedule a group to volunteer please contact Miss Kaye or Thom directly at 801-322-5912 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .