We’re so glad to be a part of the Des Moines Arts Festival each year. Five years ago we designed and built the first Silent Rivers VIP Club and Hospitality Suites. So, it was exciting for us to celebrate being a part of the Festival’s 20th year celebration this year!

After a couple days of highly collaborative teamwork, this year’s Silent Rivers VIP Club and Hospitality Suites were ready to host Des Moines Arts Festival Patrons.

Patrons of the Des Moines Arts Festival enjoy the amenities of the Silent Rivers VIP Club in style and comfort.
Beautiful weather blessed this year’s Des Moines Arts Festival, and we’re so glad it did. What a perfect way to celebrate 20 years!
Festival Salon: Our new gallery space inside the VIP Club
Our addition of a special curated art gallery inside the VIP Club area featured 10 Festival artists all with some connection to place making or architecture. Hand-picked by Silent Rivers’ owner Chaden Halfhill, each artist contributed 2 to 3 pieces to that gallery. Opening in Mars Café in mid-May, the gallery was transported to the newly built space inside the VIP Club, and dubbed the “Festival Salon”, just as the Festival opened on June 23.


Lenore Metrick-Chen of Drake University hosts a session titled “Meanings of Art” around the gallery’s Gathering Table. The Gathering Table was very popular, and we’re thrilled!
Our woodshop artisans, Alex Schlepphorst and Tom Bloxham helped us tie this space together by building this beautiful gathering table to host arts-minded conversations. This table began as refuge timber and was split and hand-crafted into this extraordinary table. This was a welcome addition as it allowed a more private space for intimate conversations as well as overflow space for the busy entertainment-filled evenings.


So many great conversations were had around the Gathering Table inside the Festival Salon. We so appreciate the talents of our in-house artisans who designed and built this table.
You can look for another gallery exhibition for the 2018 Des Moines Arts Festival when Silent Rivers will be celebrating our own 25th Anniversary!



Thanks to everyone who helped make this year’s Des Moines Arts Festival a success. The end of Festival weekend is bittersweet for us, but we always come away with great new ideas to incorporate for next year! We hope to see you June 24-26, 2018 at the Des Moines Arts Festival.
Until then, keep in touch with us on Facebook to see photos from this year as well as photos of our projects in progress.