Season Kickoff Festival

Make Your Mark

Season Kickoff Weather Update

In the event of rain tonight, indoor activities will continue.

Mark your calendar for Season Kickoff Festival Make Your Mark on Fri, Sep 9! This free all-ages event features live music, tasty food, interactive activities, new art exhibitions and more!

Walk through our campus and enjoy the ambiance of live music or grab a bite to eat from one of our many vendors, take a seat and enjoy a show!

Season Kickoff Map

Live music schedule:

Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum Courtyard

DJ Pickster (6 - 10 PM)

Wells Fargo Stage

Poet Hunter Hazelton (6 - 6:05 PM)

Breaklot - Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock (6:10 - 6:45 PM)

Poet Alexa Abbruscato (7 - 7:05 PM)

Abby Walker - Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock (7:10 - 7:45 PM)

Poet Monique Espinoza (8 - 8:05 PM)

Sophie Dorsten - Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock (8:10 - 8:45 PM)

Poet Shawnte Orion (9 - 9:05 PM)

Elmo Kirkwood (9:10 - 9:45 PM)

Poet Divine Valentin (9:55 PM - 10:00 PM)

South Lawn

DJ Pete Salaz (6 - 10 PM)

Food

Enjoy delicious food from our vendors Taqueria Las Palmas, Classic Crepes, Yoi Hibachi, Bonzai Boyz, Fried Joint and Sonora Sam’s.

Activities

So many activities, it'll be hard to decide which to do first!

- Tabletop Gaming Hosted by Arizona Game Fair

- Make your own mark with visual art in an interactive activity led by Noelle Martinez

- Augmented Reality Poetry Project by Escape Station

- MABEL featuring flash mural & sticker prizes by local artists

- Art installation and projection by Daniel Funkhouser, art installation by Melissa Martinez, selfie photo ops by Sarah Hurwitz, Matt Smith and Eric Torres

- Meet critters from the Phoenix Zoo

- Other activities by Arizona Museum of Natural History and i.d.e.a Museum

- Stroll through our art studios as they come to life with live demonstrations, draw and create your own comic book and assemble a poetry chapbook with your own poem and/or drawing.

- ASU Student Films in our Piper Theater at 8:30 PM

BIG HERO - written and directed by Jose Irizarry. An award-winning festival short about a single mom at the end of her rope trying to handle her rambunctious son. (10 minutes)
KUROK - written and directed by Erin Celine. An abstract narrative about a TV production crew trying to accede to the wishes of a powerful on-camera host. "Intense" and scary, but has no dialogue with odd-looking creatures. (6 minutes).
HERMANA - written and directed by Nurya Ibarra. Winner of ASU's "Strives to Inclusivity" Award, this is the story of two sisters on the eve of a Quinceneara. (10 minutes)
Q&A after film showings by Associate Professor and Mesa Arts Center Board Member, Jason David Scott

Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum

Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum reveals new fall exhibitions at Season Kickoff! Exhibitions include cultural provocateur Ron English, the collective exhibition of 150 sketchbooks by artists across the globe in 'The Moleskine Project', the street art of local creatives Such and Champ Styles, the childlike wonder of GIORGIKO's dreamscapes and Reen Barrera's toy-inspired sculptures.

- Premiering Five New Exhibitions

- Exhibiting Artists in Attendance

- Ron English Pop Up Store

- Book signing with Ron English, 9:00 - 10:00 PM

- Musical Entertainment by DJ Pickster

- Cash Bar

Enhancing Creativity Workshop

Making a Mark – Getting Ideas Done in the New Reality

Workshop by Eric Torres

Piper Theater | 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM

We all know it. Hustle culture has changed. Now more than ever, creatives face challenges economically, socially, and more importantly with personal well-being. So this raises questions like: How can I find the motivation to be creative? Is having a side hustle too much to ask of myself? Will I ever get my ideas done?

Join local artist and designer Eric Torres for a visual presentation about these topics and more. He’ll share perspectives aimed at sparking your ideas as well as experiences which may reinforce your decision to remain a creative.

Eric Torres Bio:

Eric Torres is a creative professional specializing in visual communication, game design, and illustration. His experience includes work with non-profit organizations, creative agencies, and most currently W. L. Gore and Associates, Inc as a Design Director.

As part of ongoing efforts to grow his career, Eric participates as an active member of the Phoenix design community. He volunteers regularly on behalf of organizations such as AIGA and Phoenix Design Week. As a small business owner, Eric publishes original design merchandise through his creative studio Eric Imagines.

Through all of these collaborations as well as personal endeavors, Eric seeks to support, encourage, and learn from fellow creatives throughout our desert community.