About the Guide

Ask local artists where to read about the arts in the Quad Cities, and they will tell you to pick up a Reader.

Since the Reader's inception over 13 years ago, we have worked tirelessly to promote the arts in our community. We have invented and sponsored high-profile, high-impact arts events, and had fun doing it. Insightful coverage of music, dance, theatre, literary arts, and visual art has always been a top priority, and our high caliber and high frequency of writing on these topics will continue to set us apart from other Quad Cities media.

We have published an annual Music Guide each July for the past five years. This year, the Annual Manual for the Arts will absorb the features previously published in our Music Guides, but and will cover the other art forms as well, making it the first and only comprehensive guide to Art in the Quad Cities.

The Annual Manual for the Arts is directed toward the Reader's core readership - educated, affluent Quad Citians who work hard and play hard. Need to find music lessons for your child? Interested in acting in a play? Want to go see some gorgeous art? What about learning to create some yourself?

The Annual Manual for the Arts answers all these needs and more.

Advertising Opportunities

Reach the people in our community with money (and time) to spend by advertising in a publication with a shelf life of one full year.

We are offering special discounted advertising rates for the first Annual Manual for the Arts.

(If your organization has 501(c)3 status, you qualify for further discounts. Other businesses and individuals may also qualify for further discounts - please contact us for details).

All advertising must be reserved by
Wednesday, July 18 at 5pm

If you need us to create an ad
(and we are well-known for creating stunning display ads)
we must receive all text, graphics, logos, instructions, etc. by
Wednesday, July 18 at 5pm

For camera-ready art
we must receive the digital file on or before
Friday, July 20 at 5pm

The Next Step:
Call the Reader at 563-324-0049 to reserve your spot and
find out what additional discounts apply.

Thanks for helping us to celebrate the vitality of the Quad Cities, and to contribute to its continued cultural growth. If you ever have suggestions for how the Reader can better accomplish this goal, do not be shy! We want to know.

The MySpace page profile for the Quad Cities trio Head Held High includes upcoming shows, the band's influences, and a response to the prompt "Sounds like." The group has written "a rock band."

It's a fair description, and therein lies a problem.

The federal Senate Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee approved $1 million for a flood-control project in Davenport in its Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations bill. The legislation is expected to be approved by the full Senate Appropriations Committee by the time you read this. It will then need to be passed by both the House and Senate before it becomes law. The funds will be used to complete pre-construction engineering and design activities and to initiate construction to provide flood protection to a water-treatment facility in Davenport.

"You got a minute?" Drink Small asked me during our phone interview.

"Yeah," I said.

"All right," he said. The bluesman left the phone. A television was audible in the background.

After a few seconds, the man who for 35 years has called himself the "Blues Doctor" returned with his guitar and played a song about the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival - how he wants to the meet the mayor of Davenport, how he played the event 10 or 12 years ago. "I can do the same thing," sang Small, who returns to the festival this weekend, "but I can do it better at the age of 74."