Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center

Why have the prices for First Thursday wine tastings increased?

The Fine Arts Center is a nonprofit. The First Thursday event has been a pretty good example of that. While we’ve averaged 350 attendees for the past year, we haven’t seen much in the way of a profit; the goal of the event is to provide a fun, social experience that simply breaks even.

To continue the event, we looked at ways to improve the product, working closely with our caterer, Garden of the Gods Gourmet. Last month, we had a four-piece string ensemble play on the Glass Corridor and included gallery tours with artist Edie Winograde and curator Blake Milteer. This month we have the Miles Street Jazz Band, free admission to the galleries and a Silent Auction, featuring many banners and posters from past FAC exhibitions and theatre productions. The price is $17 for FAC Members.

Two years ago, we had a much smaller building and an in-house food and beverage department. The event lost money then too. Today we have a renovated and expanded building and we have outsourced food and beverage, alleviating the FAC with a very large overhead. But today we now have to pay an outside company to set up tables, pay for linens, purchase the food and wine and pay for the labor. So we raised the price out of necessity.

The price is still relatively low compared to other wine tasting events … here are some examples:

Sept. 18, New South Wales Restaurant | $45
Sept. 27, Jewels of the Vine Wine Tasting | $75
Oct. 3, First Friday Fun, Denver | $49 · Anderson Arts Center (SC) | $40
Mediterranean Island Wine Tasting- Jake & Telly's | $60
Oct. 28, Viva Italia - Italian Varietals Tasting Event | $35
Nov. 18, Turkey Trot, Wines for Thanksgiving Activities | $35

We hope you understand, and hope you'll continue to support the First Thursdays at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.

Join our email list!