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The Sweet Pea Festival is a three day festival of the arts held the first Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in August. The Festival kicks off late Friday afternoon in Lindley Park with a performance by Montana Shakespeare in the Parks; Saturday starts with a children’s run and parade that lead the community to the park where the festivities continue through 7:00 p.m. on Sunday. Weekend entertainment includes music of all genres, performances by local theatre and dance troupes, workshops, family-friendly entertainment and activities, a flower show, a beer and wine garden featuring Montana microbrews, and over 100 arts and crafts vendors featuring unique pieces of art.

The week leading up to the Festival offers additional community events. Artists of all skill levels converge on Main Street Tuesday morning for [http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/dailyfeatures/chalk-on-the-walk-kicks-off-sweet-pea-week/article_e20df26d-fe21-537f-ba6d-e283fe7130cb.html Chalk on the Walk. Wednesday evening local restaurants line Main Street and musicians entertain, during Sweet Pea's Bite of Bozeman and the Sweet Pea Art Show runs through the entire month of August at the Bozeman Public Library.

Admission to events leading up to Festival weekend is free. Admission to the events in Lindley Park requires the purchase of an admission wristband. (Children six and under admitted free.)

The Sweet Pea Festival is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All money raised in excess of what is needed to operate the Festival is given back to the community in the form of grants for the arts, art education, and special projects in the Bozeman area.

HISTORY

On April 13, 1977, a group of seventeen or so Bozemanites dedicated themselves to staging a three-day Bozeman arts festival as a “celebration of creativity” among area artists and community. They referred to themselves “hopeless optimists” as the enormity of planning such a festival loomed ahead. A month later, the group decided to postpone the first event until 1978 to allow adequate preparation time and named the event “Sweetpea ‘78” in reference to the Sweet Pea Carnivals held in Bozeman at the turn of the 20th century. Some elements of the early carnivals were borrowed in creating the new festival including: the parade, ball, and celebration of the sweet pea flower.

The Sweet Pea ’78 Steering Committee received a grant from the Montana Arts Council to get the fledgling festival started. The original idea for the festival is remarkably similar to Sweet Pea Festival now held over 38 years later.

Commemorative buttons were offered for $1 each (5,000 were hand-made by the Steering Committee), but were optional for attendance. Events took place all around Bozeman: Lindley Park, Bogert Park, Ellen Theater, Cooper Park, Montana State University, and Willson Auditorium. The next year both strategies were modified – $2 buttons were required for admittance and nearly all activities took place at Lindley Park. Lindley Park is still the Festival’s primary venue today.

Sweet Pea, a new Bozeman staple, grew immensely popular with attendance reaching over 12,000 people in just a few short years. Today, the Festival’s attendance averages 15,000 people.

In 1980, an expanded Steering Committee incorporated Sweet Pea Festival and created its by-laws. With a few minor modifications, these by-laws still govern Sweet Pea. The original Steering Committee then morphed into the Sweet Pea Board of Directors. Mission, goals, and an organizational chart for the Board of Directors were created in 1989.

As the fifth Festival approached, the Board of Directors decided to offer a contest for the Sweet Pea poster. The first winner was Peg Dirkx, a Bozeman resident, who received recognition for her graphic depiction of magenta sweet peas. Dirkx’s design was chosen because it “was the most distinctive design exemplifying the Sweet Pea Festival, as well as the best visual design as seen from a distance.” The poster contest was discontinued from 1986-1987 and resumed in 1988. Typically over 50 entries are received for this popular component of the Festival.

Original Sweet Pea Festivals were held with a majority of the events from Thursday-Saturday with an ecumenical service on Sunday. At the seventh annual event, Sweet Pea modified its schedule to the Friday-Sunday now in practice. In 1984 the Taste of Bozeman was added to the Festival. Held on the Wednesday prior to Festival, this new event offered individuals the opportunity to dine on a 1,000-foot-long table down the center of Main Street from one of 30 of Bozeman’s finest restaurants. In 2001, the Taste of Bozeman was replaced by the Bite of Bozeman with 40-50 food vendors set up along a closed-off Main Street.

In 1986, the Board of Directors made a revolutionary (to Bozeman) decision: to donate proceeds from the previous year back to the community. The original founders desired that the Festival support and encourage cultural activities beyond the annual celebration. To this end, the Sweet Pea Festival created the tradition of returning any funds gathered beyond expenses back to the community in the form of grants for arts, arts education, and special projects.

Sweet Pea is always evolving. For example, “Chalk on the Walk” was first offered in 1991. A Sunday-morning church service was once again added to the schedule in 1994 ten years after it disappeared. In 2001, the 10K and 5K adult runs split off from the Sweet Pea Festival but were re-incorporated into the Festival in 2014.

Recent history of the Sweet Pea Festival includes the adoption of wristbands instead of buttons in 2007 and the creation of a contest for the t-shirt design in 2009. In 2012, the first ever day pass admission option was adopted and in 2016 wristbands went back to the full weekend pass but with a sliding scale depending on when you purchase the wristband. In 2013 the Ball and the Church Service were discontinued. In 2014 the Board elected to honor volunteers working 3+ hours with free admission to the Festival, helped the City of Bozeman purchase a mobile water bottle filling station, and decided to celebrate the art of craft brewing by adding a beer & wine garden to the Festival.

Up until 2013, the Festival had a policy of “recognizing all contributors equally.” Unlike many other festivals of its size, Sweet Pea did not receive any corporate sponsorship for any aspect of the Festival. Sweet Pea is funded primarily by the sale of admissions, however it was decided in 2013 that in order for the Festival to continue to thrive, sponsors, or partners, are necessary. Over 400 volunteers run and organize this annual event, a testament to the community’s desire for its ongoing success. From the devoted, year-round, 40+ Board of Directors to the enthusiastic hundreds of volunteers at the Festival, Sweet Pea would not exist without the volunteerism in the community.