By Mark Woolsey
Both the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art and merchants on Marietta Square are scrambling following the cancellation of Chalktoberfest — the primary fundraiser of the year for the museum and a significant revenue source for downtown restaurants and shops.
The popular event was scuttled last week as Hurricane Isaiah approached with heavy rain, high winds and the potential for tornadoes. Festival organizers say they have tarps they can put up to ward off the effects of rain showers, but determined that the forecast represented too much potential danger.
Chalktoberfest was set to feature more than 80 artists creating striking large-scale street art through the weekend and was to be paired with a Saturday craft beer festival.
Organizers are promising to be back “and bigger than ever” in 2027. Museum Director Sally Macauley says that some donors have stepped up, and the museum now has 3 to 4 percent of the revenue it had expected to garner from the event going “for our budget, for our education department, budget items in general.”
Marietta Square businesses were also thrown for a loss by the cancellation.
“We were counting on those sales during the weekend, it being the highest-grossing weekend for us for the whole year,” said Michael Judvytis, co-owner of Marietta Square stalwart Willie Rae’s.
He says they laid in additional food and drink and staffed up for the weekend, anticipating substantial crowds that never materialized. In the meantime, he noted, museum honcho Macauley is encouraging people to visit the square and partake of its diverse food, beverage and shopping items.
Judvytis says there’s been talk about staging some variety of event or fundraiser for the museum, as well as a showcase that would help merchants to recover from the cancellation.
Macauley says artists who were expected to attend this year’s event but stayed home have created chalk art in their garages and driveways, with a specific end in mind.
“They put (pictures of) it on social media and said, ‘please donate to the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art to help recoup some of the losses.’”
The museum’s website framed it this way: “the cancellation represents a financial loss of tens of thousands of dollars.”
Will they have to radically cut the budget if the money doesn’t flow?
Macauley’s take: “No, I hope not. You know, I don’t think so. I think we just, you know, might come up with some other things going forward. Next year is a whole new budget.”
If you want to donate: www.mariettacobbartmuseum.org.