After success in its rookie year, the Wheeling Arts Fest will enter its second year this summer with more activities for the public.

The Wheeling Arts and Culture Commission, a public group appointed by Mayor Andy McKenzie, will host the all-day festival from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. July 14 at West Virginia Northern Community College on the Square, Independence Hall and the Ohio County Public Library. It will feature many forms of art such as visual art, theater, literature, culinary work and music and dance.

A continuing theme from last year is that taxpayer money will represent less than 20 percent of the festival’s budget, despite being a city commission project, said commission Chairwoman Erika Donaghy.

Last year, the city contributed $1,000, but that amount could be as much as $5,000 this year. The total festival budget is $25,000, Donaghy said.

The venue will remain the same as last year – with 16th Street from Market to Chapline streets closed to traffic – because it is “a good atmosphere to create art” and is more “homey,” Donaghy said.

There will be more opportunities for guests to get hands-on experience at the festival.

“This isn’t just an event where you come and look at art,” Donaghy said. “Anyone from a child to 100 years old can come create art.”

The community will be able to come together to create murals, paintings and other compositions in various workshops. Children will have a special area to express their creativity.

The commission will bring back several exhibit types from last year, such as West Virginia Northern Community College culinary students as vendors, Independence Hall hosting historic re-enactments, local author readings at the library and a live artists’ marketplace on the square.

There will also be two stages for dance groups, bands and other performing arts. Donaghy said the stages will run in opposite shifts so there are little interruptions between acts and one can start once the previous one ends. There will be 10 acts through the day.

Local playwright Jeremy Richter is scheduled to present the second act of a play he introduced last year, “Political Little Ones,” based on the case of Lucy Bagby, a young Wheeling woman who was believed to be the last slave returned under the Fugitive Slave Act before the Civil War.

The commission will continue taking artist and vendor applications through April 14. To register, visit wheelingartsfest.com/apply.