Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Liz Dimmitt. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Liz, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?
The idea for Fairgrounds St. Pete is the culmination of many years of working on large scale immersive public art projects and wanting to bring something special and permanent to my hometown. When I first got serious about opening an immersive art space in Tampa Bay, I began by networking with a lot of people about the concept to gather feedback and ideas. One person I talked with was John Collins, the then head of the St. Pete Arts Alliance. John suggested that I meet Mikhail Mansion, a St. Pete-based artist and creative technologist. Mikhail and I had a phone call and we hit it off right away. We had many of the same ideas, interests and reference points. When we met in person, Mikhail brought his wife, Olivia, along. At this meeting, the synergy was undeniable. The three of us had similar desires and visions for creating an experiential art space and similar ideas for how to get there. Needless to say, we started working together. One first pivotal moment was a concept workshop led by Mikhail and Olivia where a bunch of our key stakeholders gathered to to start to flesh out the concept that would become Fairgrounds St. Pete. From there, we evolved our ideas into our investor pitch deck and initial design concept. We already had our future location established so next it was all about raising funds and getting to work to actually create Fairgrounds St. Pete. We are fortunate that we landed one primary investor couple, Penny and Jeff Vinik. Penny and Jeff are ideal partners because we have already been working together for several years and they understand immersive art and what it takes to host the public for a special event. Being able to tap their other businesses for advice and know-how has been valuable.
Once we raised our funds, it was time to get to work designing and building our immersive art space. We started with a global narrative which is the framework that helps us to tell the story of Fairgrounds St. Pete and to prioritize what makes the most sense to include. Our ideas are limitless and the global narrative helps rein us in by creating boundaries. Second, it was important to us to collaborate with artists and to celebrate our already thriving local arts scene. Thus, we started with an open call for artists for which we ended up receiving 145 submissions. From there we narrowed down the artists to 64. We selected the artists that were the best fit with our themes, aesthetics and narrative. The design of Fairgrounds St. Pete is a direct result of the combination of the visions of these initial artists, the work of our inhouse art team and our global narrative.
We’ve been open for almost a year now and things have been going really well. We are proud to be hosting the public in large quantities and receiving strong reviews. We have learned a lot from where we started. Many of the ideas from that initial concept workshop have come to fruition and exist in the real world now for the public to enjoy. It’s rewarding to have been a part of Fairgrounds St. Pete from the initial idea through to operations. We have come a long way and have a lot further to go. We already have plans to expand our space so stay tuned.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m Liz Dimmitt and I’m the CEO of Fairgrounds St. Pete. Fairgrounds is a ticketed immersive art and technology destination in St. Petersburg, Florida. We are a choose-your own experience space where guests are invited to explore art installations by over 60 artists, all with ties to Florida. When you step inside Fairgrounds St. Pete you enter an alternate world completely created by artists that you get to explore. There is no right or wrong path and all roads lead to fun and discovery. Our tagline is art for all, play for all, joy for all and that’s what Fairgrounds delivers. I started to work in art while living in NYC as a side gig when I was working in finance. The arts have always been a passion and eventually my passion projects became a full time job working with clients to realize art projects where the public could engage with art in fun and interesting ways. I also had a personal project called Truck Yeah with a partner where we produced box truck meetups where all the trucks were filled with art. Eventually these projects got bigger and bigger and led me to work with the Vinik Family Foundation here in Tampa Bay on their art projects. To date we’ve hosted The Beach Tampa, Art of the Brick, Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Room Love is Calling and Lucy Sparrow’s Tampa Fresh Foods. Seeing these projects come to life locally made me want to create something permanent where the public could be completely immersed in creativity and have an extraordinary art experience. Fairgrounds St. Pete is the culmination of all the art projects I have done to date. I took a little something I learned from each project and put it into Fairgrounds St. Pete. I’m proud to have charted my own path in the art world. I’ve had some usual gigs, but they all have led me to where I am today and the creation of Fairgrounds St. Pete. It’s been a rewarding journey.
Have you ever had to pivot?
When we were building Fairgrounds St. Pete we had beautiful imagery and storyful explanations that we were used to sharing with stakeholders and partners. The images and dialogues focused on the art and narrative. When we went to work with the Fire Marshall and other officials, we had to pivot away from the art and aesthetics to the more functional speak and imagery. We learned quickly that our vision didn’t translate into their language and to get approvals we needed to change the way we were telling our story.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
My first job was in a really fast paced office. There was pressure to provide answers and respond to queries quickly. Being the first to respond was more the goal than having the best answer. When I moved on to other positions I had to unlearn the rush to respond and focus on providing quality feedback. I still need to remind myself to stop and contemplate my responses versus trying to quickly clear my inbox. The first reply isn’t always the best reply.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://fairgrounds.art/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fairgroundsstpete/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fairgroundsstpete
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fairgroundsstpete/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDbzSOVhGvdBqsKNWzeqsRg
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@fairgroundsstpete
Image Credits
Copyright Fairgrounds St. Pete