Congratulations Scale Up Event Grant Awardees July-December 2024
In partnership with Travel Portland, the Events & Film Office at Prosper Portland is proud to announce five awardees for the Scale Up Grant, a competitive grant program providing funding and technical assistance for local Portland events that are positioned to grow and attract attendance beyond the Portland metro region. The awardees are Sneaker Week PDX, the 11th Annual Montavilla Jazz Festival, Lan Su Chinese Garden’s Mid-Autumn Moonlight Market, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time-Based Art Festival, and the 2024 Portland Book Festival.
Commissioner Carmen Rubio said, “Scale Up Event Grants build on Portland’s reputation as a creative and eventful city. By helping mid-sized events grow to attract more audiences — especially visitors — this program greatly benefits our community and our economy.”
Sneaker Week PDX – Friday, July 26 – Thursday, August 1
Sneaker Week PDX is a seven-day, all-ages celebration of sneaker culture and its economic impact throughout Portland. Enthusiasts, designers, and brands are given the platform to exchange ideas and explore sneaker culture. The weeklong festival includes workshops, panel discussions, collaborative demonstrations, skill challenges, a consumer summit, and many exhibits. Cultural celebrations will include food and drinks from local vendors, as well as live music and performances. During the week, participants will network and support local businesses by participating in Open Houses offering exclusive glimpses into the opportunities in the sneaker industry beyond footwear design and production.
“The receipt of the Scale Up grant from Prosper Portland is not only a crucial asset for expanding our operational capacity but it also symbolizes the recognition of our potential to generate more employment, tourism, and economic opportunities for Portlanders and aspiring footwear professionals across the globe."
Herbert Beauclere, Co-founder, Sneaker Week PDX
11th Annual Montavilla Jazz Festival – Friday, August 30 – Sunday, September 1
Photo by Kathryn Elsesser. All rights reserved.
The 11th Annual Montavilla Jazz Festival (MJF) celebrates local artistry, food, and shops in a village-style event for the whole family. In a mix of venues, the festival presents 3 days of ticketed and free concerts indoors and outdoors in iconic locations such as Mt. Tabor Park, the Historic Downtown Montavilla Street Plaza, and other notable indoor venues such as Strum, The 1905 and Alberta Rose Theatre. Award-winning Montavilla businesses such as Yaowarat, Vino Veritas, Threshold Brewing, The Observatory and many others will help showcase what makes Portland, Oregon special, with nightly food and drink specials, live music, and DJ sets.
“Montavilla Jazz is immensely excited to receive Prosper Portland’s Scale Up Grant for summer 2024. This significant funding and technical support from Prosper Portland and Travel Portland will help us realize our grand vision for a fun and inclusive event that reaches more people, boosts the local economy, and most of all celebrates Portland’s creative spirit.”
Neil Mattson, Executive Director, MONTAVILLA JAZZ
Mid-Autumn Moonlight Market – Sunday, September 1 – Tuesday, September 3
Lan Su celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival with a three-day bustling marketplace of local Asian businesses open to all ages. Visitors indulge in mouth-watering culinary delights, and captivating cultural performances. As dusk falls and the moon glows, they’ll witness the enchanting spectacle of illuminated lion dances and lanterns adorning the garden while engaging in interactive activities like the rabbit meet & greet and enchanting story time. We'll also have the world debut of adorable rabbit lantern sculptures from China that add a finishing touch of whimsy to this unforgettable celebration of culture, community, and the luminous beauty of the Mid-Autumn Festival!
"At Lan Su Chinese Garden, we are deeply honored to receive the Scale Up Event Grant, which enables us to extend the Mid-Autumn Moonlight Market beyond the walls of Lan Su and into the heart of our community. This pivotal support from Travel Portland and Prosper Portland not only allows us to showcase and celebrate Asian culture more broadly but also helps us bring more visitors to Old Town, positively impacting our local business partners. We are excited about the potential to transform our festival into a larger, more inclusive celebration that draws the community closer, both to our traditions and to each other."
Elizabeth Nye, Executive Director, Lan Su Chinese Garden
Time-Based Art Festival 2024 – Thursday, September 5 – Saturday, September 14
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) will present the 21st edition of the Time-Based Art Festival (TBA), our annual contemporary art festival, in September 2024. TBA:24 is a multi-day, in-person festival, supporting local, national, and international artist projects representing various artistic mediums, including performances, visual art, film, and more. Many projects will be presented by BIPOC and QTPOC artists. While we include content warnings for some of our programs, all ages are welcome to the Festival. Food and drink are available at all TBA:24 events and we partner with local food and drink vendors, with priority for working with BIPOC and Queer-owned businesses.
“PICA’s Time-Based Art Festival, lovingly known as TBA, is a celebration bringing together groundbreaking artists, engaged audiences, and vibrant communities. Grants like the Scale Up Grant are essential in sustaining this creative ecosystem and enables us to support and present visionary artists. Join us this September to experience the unexpected and the extraordinary at TBA.”
Leslie Vigeant, Director of Marketing and Communications, PICA
2024 Portland Book Festival – Monday, October 28 – Sunday, November 3
Portland Book Festival is a regional festival that features ~148 authors and moderators in discussions, readings, writing workshops, story times, book fair, local food trucks, and more with ~58 stage events, ~18 readings, ~87 book fair vendors, and four partner bookstores. We have 11 stages at the Portland Art Museum and nearby venues. The Cover-to-Cover series features ~37 literary events put on by ~40 partner bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, etc. throughout the city before and after the Festival. The Friday Night Book Market kicks off the weekend, with book fair vendors; food, beverage and craft vendors; and live music.
"Portland Book Festival is a cornerstone annual event at the center of art and civic life, bringing readers and writers of all ages together to exchange stories about the world’s most important ideas. We are honored to be a recipient of Prosper Portland’s Scale Up Grant, which will provide much needed marketing resources and publicity support to expand our reach throughout the region. We will be able to engage experts and create new assets to use across our website and social media that will support targeted marketing to attract new audiences to Portland Book Festival, the largest general interest book festival in the PNW."
Senior Artistic Director, Amanda Bullock
Scale Up Grants are intended to advance the city’s economic and cultural revitalization, with an emphasis on supporting areas of Portland that have experienced a significant impact from COVID, including high losses in number of businesses and employment, high increase in office vacancies, and significant change in visitor and employee foot traffic.
Award packages are comprehensive programs consisting of up to $25,000 in direct financial support plus custom technical, marketing, administrative, and logistical assistance provided by Travel Portland and Prosper Portland. Packages are customized for each recipient depending on needs requested during the application process. Awardees can also connect with other grant recipients as a part of a cohort model. Applications are slated to open in fall 2024 for the next round of Scale Up Grants to support eligible 2025 events.
Prosper Portland, Travel Portland, and the City of Portland Office of Arts and Culture support and fund this program.
2024 Round 1 Scale Up Event Grant Awardees
In partnership with Travel Portland The Events & Film Office at Prosper Portland is proud to announce the Scale Up event grant recipients: Fertile Ground Festival of New Works, Kickstand Comedy in the Park, and Good Food Awards Weekend. For more info on the awardees and selection process, read on!
Fertile Ground Festival of New Works
Fertile Ground Festival of New Works is an 11-day festival featuring new performances by local artists including world premiere projects, staged readings, developing works, and a myriad of other arts events from the Portland creative community.
After a strategic hiatus, the Portland Area Theatre Alliance (PATA) is presenting their first in-person Festival since 2020.
Fertile Ground showcases new and local "acts of creation" at various stages in their development. In 2020, the Festival included 52 unique projects by 46 different producers, including fully staged world premieres, readings of new scripts, songs from new musicals, solo shows, puppetry, dance, circus arts, and panel discussions with local artists. In 2024, the Festival will expand to include local restaurants and bars near venues and invite them to offer a discount for Festival attendees.
Kickstand Comedy in the Park is a series of free Friday evening comedy shows curated for an all-ages audience. The event was created in 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic-related closures of comedy and performing arts venues and has continued every summer. Hosted in Laurelhurst Park from late June to early September, Comedy in the Park regularly attracts 4,700 Portlanders and out-of-town guests to the park each week.
The Good Food Awards Weekend is a nationally recognized three-day celebration of sustainable, socially responsible, and delicious food and drink makers from all over the country. The first day features a welcome dinner that bring together local Portland and Oregon leaders in food and farming for a special dinner highlighting local agriculture and small food businesses. The second day includes an Oscars-style awards ceremony where 200 top national food makers will be awarded medals and give inspiring acceptance speeches, followed by an after party. The third day is the Good Food Mercantile, where 240 local and national sustainable food makers sample their products for grocery store owners, food media, and distributors from all over the country.
The office received 18 applications and each application was scored based on the following five criteria:
Long Term Vision: What is the applicant’s vision for the long-term growth and potential of this event?
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Does this event center historically marginalized communities? (i.e. communities who have experienced systemic barriers to business/property ownership, affordable housing options, high-wage income, access to capital, quality education, safe transportation options, or other access barriers)
Location Investment: Does this applicant prioritize areas that have experienced a significant impact from COVID (including high losses in number of businesses and employment, high increase in office vacancies, and considerable change in visitor & employee foot traffic such as in the Central City)?
Creative Spirit: Does this applicant exemplify Portland’s culture, spirit, and creativity?
Attendance: Does this event attract between 750-7,500 attendees with proposed capacity to attract more?
Applications open in spring 2024 for the second round of Scale Up Grants to support eligible events happening July – December 2024.