Ah, the festival poster! What an excellent idea! Officially introduced at the 1975 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the festival poster was created in celebration of that event. Ever since, other festivals have taken note and created their own posters. Many festival posters display an array of colors and ideas about that years festival. Festival posters come in several shapes and sizes. Most are rectangular but some are square.

Below is a short list of some of the major festivals in Louisiana. Many of these festivals produce silk screened or printed posters for sale at the event. Several of these festivals include a new poster each and every year. Eventually, a complete list of festival poster images, state by state, year by year, will be compiled. Might be impossible, we shall see. Time is on my side and with a little help from the readers of this post, maybe it won't take so long!

Louisiana:
New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival
Rayne Frog Festival
Broussard Boudin Festival
St. Charles Aligator Festival
Des Allemands Catfish Festival
Church Point Buggy Festival
Plaisance Zydeco Festival
New Iberia Sugarcane Festival
New Iberia Cajun Fun Fest
Delcambre Shrimp Festival
South Louisiana Black Pot Festival
Festivals Acadiens
Festival International
Morgan City Shrimp and Petroleum Festival
Louisiana Watermelon Festival (Farmerville)
Crowley International Rice Festival
Baton Rouge Hot Air Balloon Festival
Jonesboro Hodge Kraft Paper Festival
Madisonville Wooden Boat Festival
Gonzales Jambalaya Festival
Louisiana Courir du Mardi Gras (Mamou)
Milton Festival a la Campagne
Le Festival de Mardi Gras a Lafayette
Gueydan Duck Festival
LaPlace Andouille Festival
Opelousas Yambilee Festival
Louisiana Cotton Festival
Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival
Colfax Pecan Festival
Zwolle Tamale Fiesta
Thibodaux Gumbo Festival
Carencro Cracklin Festival
Tangipahoa Oyster Festival

Kentucky:
Kentucky Derby Festival

New Mexico:
New Mexico Balloon Festival

For a more extensive list of Louisiana Festivals please see:
http://www.cajunradio.org/louisianafestivals.html

Older festival posters are silk screened. Many of the newer ones are printed. I prefer the silk screened posters as many are hand pulled. Silk screening a poster by hand is done in stages. Every color in a silk screened poster is pulled separately and set to dry. The more colors a silk screened poster has, the more difficult and time consuming it is to make and generally tend to be more valuable than one with fewer colors pulled. A poster can have as few as 2 colors are as much as 20 or more colors. Posters are generally screened with ink or thinned out acrylic paints. All festival posters are collectible and most are affordable when purchased at the event.

Festival posters come both signed and unsigned by the artist and in some cases even signed by the subject in the poster. Unsigned posters are produced in bulk and are generally not worth as much as an artist signed poster or a double signed poster (artist/subject). The size of the event being held usually determines the number of posters that will be screened or printed. Runs of 1500, 10,000 and 12,500 are not uncommon numbers for unsigned posters. Signed posters tend to be screened in very limited numbers. Runs of 250, 900 and 3,000 are common runs for artist signed posters. The most valuable usually tend to be Artist Proofs (AP) as the artist has specifically picked out the ones in the run that he/she likes best and these are so few in number that they are generally given out to friends or family of the artist involved with that poster.

It has been my experience that silk screened festival posters on the secondary market are somewhat hard to find and the purchase price usually does not justify its rarity. These posters are usually printed on a very heavy stock paper which is acid free so it will last a long time if taken care of properly.

Proper care of your posters is very important. The best place for your poster is framed and hanging on a wall. I would recommend UV glass for valuable posters that way they do not fade over time. It is also important that you do not keep a poster in direct sunlight. This will cause rapid fading of the colors and yellowing of the paper the poster is printed on.

Never spray mount a poster to a board as the spray will eventually work its way to the front surface of the poster and destroy the image. A poster should be hung within its frame with acid free tape and there is no need to tape all the way around the poster. A few small pieces on top and one on each side should suffice. Make sure the tape is sticky enough to hold the poster in place for many years to come but don't use a tape that is overly sticky or you may ruin the poster when trying to remove to re-frame. It is also very important that you wash your hands well. Your skin contains oils that can ruin your poster over time. Be sure to handle your poster with care and be careful not to bend, crease or tear your poster as this may affect its value dramatically.

I am not very familiar with festivals outside of Louisiana. If you happen to know of a festival within your home state which makes a silk screened or printed poster to celebrate the yearly event, add a comment below to let us know. Festival posters only please!

You are welcome to take a look at the posters in my collection located here:

http://lobbyart.ecrater.com/

Please feel free to comment. Thanks and I hope you enjoy this blog!