Spoleto on a Budget
For 17 days each spring, Spoleto Festival USA fills Charleston's historic theaters, churches, and outdoor spaces with performances by renowned artists and emerging performers in theater, dance and music. It is internationally recognized as America’s premier performing arts festival. The only negative is that tickets are very expensive and often sell out quickly. But there are ways to experience Spoleto on a budget, and Dede has become an expert over the years!
How to do Spoleto on a budget:
You can sort the festival schedule by venue. Anything at the Cistern is outdoors and can be heard without a ticket from the surrounding sidewalks.
Buy tickets in person. You’ll save $8/ticket by purchasing tickets at the George St Kiosk (open daily during the festival 11:00am–5:00pm) instead of online.
Go for the cheap seats! All of the venues are small and intimate enough that even the cheap seats offer great views/sound.
Check out Piccolo Spoleto's free Sunset Serenade at US Custom House Friday May 26 with Charleston Symphony Orchestra
Make a beach day out of the Sand Sculpture contest on Saturday June 3 at Isle of Palm's front beach
Visit Marion Square May 26-June 10 when it becomes an open air art gallery with exhibits and art for sale from local artists
Attend the Festival finale at Firefly Distillery. Tickets are $45 for adults and you can pack a picnic of your own food. The best part? The fireworks show at the end!
Did you know?
Spoleto strategically timed for after CofC classes conclude so the campus can be transformed into an arts venue and CofC students volunteer for Spoleto as part of a Maymester class
Each season, the Festival employs more than 500 full-time, part-time, and seasonal staffers, including 80 musicians for the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra and 60 apprentices in arts administration and production.
The reason tickets are so expensive is because the festival features world renowned acts who otherwise wouldn't perform in Charleston.
In a typical season, Spoleto mounts 150 performances in more than 10 venues. The Festival also produces its own operas, specializing in rarely performed masterpieces by well-known composers, American premieres, and traditional works presented in new ways.
Together with city leaders, Spoleto has spearheaded the renovations of numerous performance spaces: Festival Hall, Dock Street Theatre, College of Charleston Sottile Theatre, and the Charleston Gaillard Center.
The Festival’s mission is to present programs of the highest artistic caliber while maintaining a dedication to young artists, a commitment to all forms of the performing arts, a passion for contemporary innovation, and an enthusiasm for providing unusual performance opportunities for established artists.
The Festival is proud to provide young performers the opportunity to work with master artists, conductors, directors, designers, and performers.
Spoleto Festival USA was founded by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to create an American counterpart to the annual Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, that he founded in 1958. Looking for a city that would provide the charm of Spoleto as well as its wealth of theaters, churches and other performances spaces, Menotti selected Charleston. The historic city was intimate enough that the Festival would captivate the entire city, yet cosmopolitan enough to provide an enthusiastic audience and robust infrastructure. Championed by a young Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. and College of Charleston’s then-president Theodore Stern, Spoleto Festival USA held its inaugural season in 1977.
