The 48th annual Fall Tempe Festival of the Arts returns to downtown Tempe on December 2nd-4th, 2016 with new and expanded offerings such as the Sixth + Mill Makers section, a dedicated Food Truck Alley and triple the number of wine and beer gardens.
The award-winning festival features nearly 400 peer-juried, handpicked artists and artisans and regularly draws as many as 225,000 guests looking for holiday gift items including handmade art pieces, jewelry, home decor, local wines, beer and food, all while enjoying live music and entertainment.
Festival organizers created the new Sixth + Mill Makers area to introduce a more fresh and modern vibe of particular appeal to millennials. It will feature nearly 30 Do-It-Yourself (DIY) enthusiasts curated by local art emissaries, Standard Wax. Located at 6th Street and Mill Avenue, it will highlight products such as buttons, cards, ceramics, children’s clothing, concrete planters, floral arrangements, handmade jewelry, letterpress stationary, upcycled furniture, watercolors, wood work and more. Edibles such as finishing salts and cocktail mixes will also be part of the exhibit as well as a make-and-take booth for people who like to have their own hands-on treasures to take home.
Because food trucks proved very popular with hungry festival-goers in the spring, a dedicated Food Truck Alley will offer even more choices this fall. Among the offerings: Arizona Gold, Costantino’s Italian Kitchen, SuperFarm SuperTruck, The Rocket Food Truck, The Maine Lobster Lady, Tornado Potato and Yellowman Fry Bread.
Packaged and hand‐made gourmet foods, seasonings, cottage crafts and remedies can be found in the Cottage Edibles section in addition to food and snack vendors selling festival munchies such as kettle corn, cotton candy, fudge, roasted nuts and more. Award‐winning Arizona‐made wines from Arizona Stronghold Vineyards, AZ Wine Cellars, Cellar 443 and Page Springs Cellars will also offer samples in the Cottage Edibles area with bottles available for purchase. For those who want to relax with a full glass, beer and wine lovers can imbibe at three distinct gardens offering local brew from Tempe-based Four Peaks Brewery and Pedal Haus Brewery as well as Gordon Biersch Brewing Company.
Making and doing figure big in this year’s fall festival with a variety of kid and family‐friendly features, such
as a variety of art‐making stations along Kids Block, including activities with Build A Racecar, Childsplay
Theatre, Creative Reuse Arizona, Children’s Museum of Phoenix, Girls Rock!, i.d.e.a Museum, Phoenix
Youth Circus and more.
Three stages will offer live entertainment for music lovers, featuring cover bands, jazz, grassroots, rock and world music. Included in this year’s lineup are Elvis Before Noon, Jenny Jarnagin, Rifkin, The Groove Merchants, The Sugar Thieves, Tempe favorite Walt Richardson, and others. 
The festival will encompass a pedestrian zone on Mill Avenue from 3rd Street to University in Downtown Tempe from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily. The festival is open to the public and admission is free.
For full festival details, artist line up and entertainment schedules, please visit:
https://www.tempefestivalofthearts.com
About Downtown Tempe Authority: Since 1993, the award‐winning Downtown Tempe Authority has been the private, non‐profit organization that works in partnership with the City of Tempe to increase the value of Downtown Tempe through enhanced management, safety, marketing and promotional services on behalf of DTA members and other downtown stakeholders.