If someone were to announce that a new business was coming to Ann Arbor and would generate an estimated $70 million in economic activity here, that would be considered great news.

Such an enterprise did open in Ann Arbor a week-and-a-half ago, as it does every year. Collectively, it’s called the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, and its impact on the community is immense.

Ann Arbor's South University Art Fair

Angela J. Cesere | AnnArbor.com

It’s unfortunate that this year’s event was hit by a sequence of severe thunderstorms, which affected both attendance and sales. But seasoned art fair-goers know that heat and rain are annual features and plan accordingly.

While organizers of the four concurrent art fairs can’t do much about the weather, what they can control, they do with an efficiency that should make all of us marvel. On the Tuesday of art fairs week, we begin to see signs of the event, and by Wednesday, it’s in full swing, accommodating a half a million people or so over four days. By Sunday morning, it’s gone. The efficiency of the operation, and the amount of coordination and volunteer support it requires, is impressive.

There is much that is tried-and-true about the art fairs, but each year brings new features as well. This year, the organizers of the four art fairs put an emphasis on collaboration among them. Among the benefits of that spirit of cooperation were a new iPhone app for the art fairs, and the replacement of shuttle buses with newly renovated, air-conditioned trolley cars to carry patrons from one art fair to another.

While some seasoned townies plan their vacations to avoid being here during the art fairs, those who stick around are treated to an event whose breadth and sheer variety and quality of art make it unparalleled among art fairs across the state and region. Even nationally, few such events can compare.

Mary Kerr, president of the Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, notes that of those who attend the art fairs, an estimated half of them come from outside our area, and many of them return year after year, making the event a boon for local businesses, particularly hotels and restaurants.

Ann Arbor is a community with a deep appreciation of the arts, and for four days every summer, it shares its love of art with the world. The longevity and the mass appeal of this iconic event are something that most Midwestern towns could not even dream of achieving. We thank and congratulate the four art fair organizations for what they achieved this year, and look forward to the familiar and the new that they plan for 2011.