The ArtBreak Festival was created in 1984 when funding cuts threatened to eliminate the arts instructors’ positions and the community arts partnerships in Caddo Parish Public Schools.  A team of administrators, teachers, students, parents, and community leaders came together to develop a means of promoting the importance of arts education as a key component of the total curriculum.  Cathy Sledge, while teaching English at Caddo Magnet High in 1984, is credited with exclaiming, “In Louisiana, if anything is really important…from cotton and crawfish to peaches and polk salad, we make a festival to celebrate it…let’s create a festival to celebrate the importance of curriculum-based arts programs!”  Within three months of this declaration, the first ArtBreak Festival was produced and held at the Municipal Auditorium and Plaza.  In its 31 year history, the ArtBreak Festival has been produced at the Municipal Auditorium, the Convention Hall and “old” festival plaza, the Expo Hall, and the Riverview Convention Hall and Civic Theatre.  In 2007, ArtBreak moved to a new home at the Shreveport Convention Center.