The Madison Area Arts Council Chautauqua Series presents White Night: An evening of arts, culture, and discovery here in the Madison Area…

 The Madison Area Arts Council is pleased to announce White Night, a free and open arts and culture festival, highlighting the Madison area, and bringing many guests and visitors into the downtown corridor.

White Nights, or Nuits Blanches, are worldwide nighttime arts and culture festivals that began as a way to make use of the prolonged summer sun. Within the past 10 years, this movement has spread from Paris, Berlin and St. Petersburg.

Madison will be home to one of the first White Night festivals in the Midwest, and the first in South Dakota.

MAAC will host two White Night events as part of our ongoing Chautauqua Series on a semi-annual basis, the first on Thursday, July 1 from 5 - 10 p.m. and the second this coming December. Our White Night efforts will take place in and around The BrickHouse Community Arts Center, located at 106 S.E. 2^nd St. in Madison.

Artists will be working, painting, drawing, writing, playing and creating at and around The BrickHouse. MAAC will secure the closure of a portion of S.E. 2^nd St. in front of The BrickHouse as an area for artists and musicians to perform and foster a festival-like atmosphere. There will be no admission for any of our sponsored events.

All local businesses are invited to be a part of this inaugural White Night. MAAC encourages businesses to stay open and offer “White Night” specials for customers between the hours of 5 to 10 p.m. on July 1. We hope businesses will offer a family-friendly environment during the festival.

Also, in keeping with the spirit of the festival, we would like everyone to leave their lights on to help us show the City of Madison in a “different light.”

This will be a great free opportunity to promote and celebrate the Madison community. Local businesses should let us know that they will participate at contact@madisonareaartscouncil.org, prior to July 1, and we’ll add you to the online roster, which is now available here on our website.

If you have any questions, or would like to share your support, feel free to email us at contact@madisonareaartscouncil.org, or comment below.