If you notice a lot of new faces at the Fourth Avenue Street Fair, you can thank the Computer Age.

The Fourth Avenue Merchants Association went to an online application process for the first time for this weekend’s fair – the 38th annual – which resulted in some 85 new artists.

“We have about 356 artists in the show. Twenty-four percent of those artists have never shown in our show before,” said Kurt Tallis, marketing and events director with the merchants’ association.

The association used Zapplication.org, where artists can apply to shows around the country all at the same time, rather than sending slides and applications to each festival individually.

“It opened us up to the largest pool in our history,” Tallis said. “But we were careful. We didn’t want to do ‘Well, OK, all you old artists are out and only new ones are in.’ We wanted a good influx of new blood but to also honor our past.”

By comparison, Tempe’s Festival of the Arts last weekend, which also used Zapplication for the first time, went with 70 percent new artists, said Kate Hastings, vice president of marketing and business development with Downtown Tempe Community Inc.

For the 2007 Winter Street Fair here, 576 artists applied, compared to 360 last year, Tallis said.

The process is much easier, said metal artist Jennifer Utsch, a former Tucsonan who has sold work at the street fair for about eight years.

For longtime vendor Cindy Whitfield, the Fourth Avenue Street Fair is her second-most-lucrative show of the year, behind one in Fountain Hills, near Scottsdale. But annual take “depends,” the Sedona resident and creator behind Rich Rags wearable art, said.

“It’s always fluctuating,” said Whitfield, who returns this weekend to do her 34th show. “When we went to war, it dropped. Ten years ago, it was fabulous. Ten years ago, I might have made $15,000 a weekend. Now you’re lucky to make between $5,000 and $8,000.”

Whitfield, who won best in show in spring 2005, said that the promoters behind the Fourth Avenue Street Fair treat artists well: Booth fees have not increased in 12 years, she said, and this year Tallis e-mailed restaurant coupons to all participating artists.

Whitfield said she recognizes that some attendees come just for other attractions such as the 35 food vendors, so she’s pleased with the amount of experimentation being done to pull new people to the fair.

Future plans to grow the Fourth Avenue Street Fair, which draws some 300,000 to both its winter and spring versions, include expanding into the Fourth Avenue underpass once construction is done, Tallis said.

“Another expansion would be to what they call the ‘Golden Triangle,’ between Sixth Street and Ninth Street, west of Fourth Avenue to Sixth Avenue,” said Tallis, a former Fourth Avenue merchant himself as owner of TNT Smokeshop. “It’s ripe for development.”

A recent addition to the fair is the Children’s Van Grow hands-on art pavilion, offered for the third time, Tallis said. With staff from the Tucson Children’s Museum, kids learn to make art for free.

The pavilion is next to HawkQuest, a Colorado nonprofit that first brought its live birds of prey to the fair in the spring.

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IF YOU GO

When: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday-Sunday

Where: Fourth Avenue, between Ninth Street and University Boulevard

Price: free admission

Info: 624-5004, fourthavenue.org

Parking: Daylong parking is available for $5 Friday and $2 each Saturday and Sunday at the downtown Pennington Street garage (at Scott Avenue); a free shuttle runs to and from the fair, with pickup and drop-off at the southwest corner of Fourth Avenue and Sixth Street.

Travel restrictions: Motor vehicle traffic will be prohibited from Third Avenue to Fifth Avenue, between Ninth Street and University Boulevard beginning at 1 p.m. Thursday through midnight Sunday.

University Boulevard, Sixth Street and Ninth Street will remain open for motor vehicle traffic.

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35 food vendors / 38 years of the street fair / 356 arts and crafts vendors / 2,500 hotel nights / 4,000 hours of labor to put up fair 24,000 restaurant meals (attributed to fair) / 27,000 out-of-town attendees / 300,000 attendees, over the three days

Source: Fourth Avenue Merchants Association

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