Expression Abounds at Arts, Beats, & Eats Festival in Royal Oak
(Crystal A. Proxmire, Sept. 7, 2026)
Royal Oak, MI – The streets of Downtown Royal Oak are filled with arts and culture each Labor Day weekend for the annual Arts, Beats, & Eats festival. Thousands of people stroll through a layout that includes multiple concert stages, booths with artists from near and far, a variety of cuisines to choose from, carnival rides, games and more.
“In Royal Oak we really pride ourselves on our vision and our priorities, and one of those priorities that’s almost at the very top of the list, if not top, is quality of life. Quality of life often comes in the things we can see, and touch, and feel, but it also comes when we come together,” said Royal Oak Mayor Mike Fournier as he described a new addition to the festival – the Fifth Street Plaza. The closed road creates a pocket park of space lined by restaurants like Rock & Brews, Detroit Eatery, Fifth Avenue, and O’Tooles. Diners as well as those in the plaza get to enjoy the bands gracing the festival’s Rock Stage. This year’s lineup included the Cherry Bombs, Stone Clover, and Sunset Blvd.
Artists came from all over the country to be at Arts, Beats, & Eats. Aaron Reed, a painter from Conyers, Georgia, did live painting in front of his booth. Reed had no formal training as a painter. He did go to school for marketing and business, but said he doesn’t use those skills much. “I just go to different shows and people buy my work,” he said. “I just show up.”
There were local artists as well, including an enclave of local artists with booths in the parking lot of Royal Oak Tap Room. Amrita Shah of Troy was there with her paintings, including an ominous looking stairwell that she told Oakland County Times was “in an old luxury hotel in India that used to be famous. Mark Twain even stayed there,” she said. “But now it’s run down and abandoned. I like that it’s broken.”
Shah said she likes doing paintings that “show signs of luxury that are now in disrepair.”
She shared that she had left her work in engineering to follow her passion for painting. “I’m fortunate my family is supportive,” she said. Her advice to other artists is that even if they have to work, they should keep their art alive as a hobby and never to give up. “If they really want it, it will happen for them,” she said.
Mady Chen of Milan is another artist who likes to take something mainstream and make it her own. With a booth lined with prints, Chen brought joy to passers by who liked the simple brightness of her designs. While her favorite subjects are her two cats – Apple and Thistle – she also enjoys taking famous paintings and replacing the subjects with animals – especially cats and fish. One more complex iteration of Washington Crossing the Delaware has a squirrel and other woodland creatures heading on a journey, not in a boat, but in the beak of a pelican.
“Printmaking is so satisfying,” Chen said. “You do this work with your hands and you have an idea what you’re doing but you don’t really know until you finish the carving and see the final product.”
For Anthony Brass of Ferndale, art is about connecting with nature. His brightly colored scenes of plants, mushrooms, fish, and birds have been gracing art fairs since 2018. Before devoting himself to art full time, Brass worked installing gutters and attended school for graphic design. “I work way more hours now,” he said. “Now I work about 100 hours a week. But I love what I’m doing and it never feels like work.”
This year’s Arts, Beats, & Eats also features a small petting zoo thanks to Oakland County Parks and Bowers Farm, a carnival with rides and games, a marijuana consumption area, bounce houses and art projects for the kids, booths for local organizations – including the Royal Oak Democrats and the Oakland County Republicans, drag queen comedy at Five15, and more.
The festival wraps up Monday evening. Learn more at https://artsbeatseats.com/
