Musical performances took place downtown and on campus, and the first Sidewalk Sale and Exhibition consisted of people hanging work on snow fence along "The Wall" on the southern border of the Old Main lawn.
The festival is now five days long, from Wednesday through Sunday in early July each year, and the Sidewalk Sale and Exhibition is now professionally juried.
The Board employs a staff of three to manage both the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts and First Night State College.
More than three hundred exhibitors offer a wide variety of objects for sale including baskets, ceramics, jewelry, fiber, painting, photography, and wearable art.
Each February, a panel reviews the images and the artists receiving the highest scores were accepted into the Sidewalk Sale & Exhibition.
To encourage and support the visual arts on a regional basis, the Sidewalk Sale and Exhibition sets aside booth spaces for artists whose primary residence is in the following Central Pennsylvania counties: Blair, Centre, Clearfield, Clinton, Huntingdon, Mifflin and Union.
The twentieth annual poll, published in the September 2012 issue of Sunshine Artist, is based on sales totals reported by exhibitors at the 2011 festival.
The Festival also erects outdoor stages on the 100 block of South Allen Street, and on the lawn of Old Main, Penn State's administration building.
Music presented covers a wide range of genres, from classical to rock to bluegrass to jazz to symphonic band.
The exhibition accepts works in ceramic, fiber, and paper, in addition to the traditional fine art categories of drawings, painting, mixed media, photography, printmaking, watercolor, and sculpture.
For the past 30 years this Festival's posters have been designed Penn State Professor of Visual Arts Lanny Sommese, and many are locally iconic images in the community.
First Night features performances by musicians, dancers, and theatre groups, Other activities include arts and crafts workshops for young children, carriage rides, and a 5K run.
BookfestPA is a portion of the Festival centered around literature and includes local authors, talks by writers, and an array of book-related activities.