Boston appeared to go “festival mad” last year, with a slew of spring, summer, and fall music fests popping up all over town. One of the highlights, to us, at least, was Outside The Box, a nine-day, free outdoor music and performing arts powwow headlined by a ’90s-licious Boston Common concert with Buffalo Tom, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and the Lemonheads.
Now, Outside The Box has announced it’s taking 2014 off to regroup and return next year with a festival “that will be comprised of the entire community, not just for the entire community,” according to a public letter penned today by founder and philanthropist Ted Cutler.
Hey, as long as they bring back the Shake Shack tent and a nearly 100-performer slate featuring the bands like Abadabad, Ruby Rose Fox, Gentlemen Hall, Shea Rose, Tallahassee, Will Dailey, and our very own Bearstronaut, it’ll be worth the wait.
Check out the highlight video below, then read the full message from Cutler after the jump…
OUTSIDE THE BOX FESTIVAL 2013 from Outside The Box on Vimeo.
Outside The Box Will Return Summer of 2015!!
Dear Friends
The impact of the 2013 Festival (July 13-21) was simply amazing:
1) There were over 650,000 visits on the Common and City Hall Plaza during the 9 day event;
2) Over 50,000 children participated in the youth educational and entertainment programs;
3) The Festival produced a $62 million dollar economic impact.
4) Over 3000 artists performed on major stages making an impact on the community.
5) It was free for everyone.It was an amazing event for the community, the artists, and the businesses in Boston. If you haven’t seen it, the following link will take you to video summary of the festival: http://vimeo.com/81527277
The Box Performing Arts Festival was created by Boston philanthropist Ted Cutler as a 501 (C) 3 non-profit organizations with a mission to bring world-class performing arts outdoors to our citizens and visitors free of charge, impact the lives of the local art community through collaborative programming, present and educate the arts on a large scale platform, commission new works of national and international significance, and generate regional partnerships that have a positive economic impact through cultural tourism.
In its first year, Outside The Box has already enhanced the social image of Boston, and fostered the idea that the community is artistically vibrant. Outside The Box has already demonstrated the power to change lives and communities, as well as the ability to engage, inform, and entertain audiences that might not otherwise attend such events.
One man built the inaugural Festival to prove that the local artists of Boston could create the most powerful event in the city. That has now been documented. For this festival to continue, however, the next version of Outside The Box must be created. It must consist of collaborative efforts of many arts and civic organizations to provide the efficiencies, innovation, and agilities for this mission to change the culture. This change requires the established and various mindsets of leaders to create an “interdependent culture” that will craft new strategies to accomplish the mission.
We are going to take the next year and build an organization comprised of the finest organizations and individuals in the region that share the mission of Outside The Box. Together we will build a festival that will return in the summer of 2015 that will be comprised of the entire community, not just for the entire community.
Friends, we welcome your support and participation. Later this spring, we will introduce a membership program that we would like you to join.
To accomplish our mission, we need to create an organization comprised of those who have a passion for the performing arts.
We put together an event that changed how the arts can be presented in Boston. Our next goal is to build the organization that will change the culture of how the arts influence and become part of the community.
I appreciate your support of the festival, its mission and commitment to the Boston community.
Ted Cutler