Mission

First Friday is a monthly citywide gallery night that encourages collaboration between small & mid-sized art venues in Rochester, NY. This initiative showcases area artists and smaller arts institutions by promoting the First Friday evening of each month as a community night for experiencing art.

Collective Impact

First Friday has been intentionally designed to benefit all the participating small art venues and to boost the entire art community. It only succeeds when all venues contribute and fully engage. RoCo’s small team puts a lot of time into organizing First Friday, and it has been collectively built by the many venues who contribute to help it succeed. If you’re new to First Friday, please do your part to support all of your peer venues by joining First Friday officially via the links below.
*Please note that First Friday events are limited to the visual and performing arts.

Want to host regular First Friday events?
1. Click here to contribute the annual $100 participation fee. These funds help offset some of the website and admin expenses of this program. It directly supports all of the other small venues who contribute and host First Friday events. Thank you for doing your part to help keep this program sustainable to benefit the entire community!
2. Receive our emails. You’ll be added to our First Friday venue mailing list and can expect two emails a month reminding you to send us your listing.
3. Promote and cross-promote! First Friday is a collaborative effort. By using the #FirstFridayROC hashtag in your posts and sharing the official list of events on Instagram (Tuesday before First Friday) you’ll be supporting all the other venues in this community, and being supported right back.

Want to organize a First Friday event at a Temporary Location?
• This Month Only participation is $25 per event listing.
• Click here to send us your event information.

Are you an Anderson Alley Artist who wants their own listing?
• Click here to contribute the discounted participation fee.
*For artists / businesses in the Anderson Arts Building only

*Holidays*
First Friday occasionally lands on or near a national or religious holiday. Some participating venues may decide not to open on these dates. In order to avoid future confusion, First Friday Citywide Gallery Night doesn’t shift to another day or week (i.e. First Thursday or Second Friday).