Partner Spotlights

Art Center Sarasota

What makes your business unique?

As Sarasota’s first visual arts organization, Art Center Sarasota is celebrating 100 years of creativity, connection, and community with a Centennial Season packed with powerful exhibitions, vibrant events, and expanded programs for all ages. The Art Center’s Centennial Season events feature the inaugural Authors & Illustrators Book Fair (Saturday, December 6, 2025 from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.), inspiring exhibitions, engaging classes, youth and family programs, and recurring, innovative art events like Art Actually, Second Fridays: Creative Happy Hour, and Saturday Night Sketch Club. The legendary Beaux Arts Ball—first launched in the 1940s—will be the crown jewel of the Centennial Season, dazzling Sarasota once again on March 21, 2026. The revival, located at the Sarasota Municipal Auditorium, will blend spectacle, costume, creativity, performance, and celebration–bringing a historic tradition roaring into the present.

What do you value most about your VSC partnership?

The kind employees, connections we make, learning about other incredible community partners, opportunities, and possibilities.

How long have you been in operation?

100 years!

What would visitors find interesting/​intriguing about your business?

Art Center Sarasota is Sarasota's first visual arts organization, honoring a century of impact, creativity, and connectivity. Our Centennial Season is an invitation for the entire community to celebrate Sarasota’s remarkable arts legacy at Art Center Sarasota. We are admission free and serve as Sarasota's community art center. We have seven cycles of exhibitions this season which include fresh, bold artwork for patrons to enjoy. Our dynamic array of classes and workshops include oil painting, acrylics, photography editing, and more. Every Saturday, we offer Family Saturdays, free and open to the public from 12 - 3 p.m. where families can drop in and create art experiences together. Our Centennial Season programming offers a rich variety of opportunities for visitors to engage with the arts, find inspiration, and celebrate artistic expression.

Discover Sarasota Tours

What makes your business unique?

We are the ONLY trolley tour company in Sarasota and Venice offering 18 unique award-winning narrated daytime tours and nighttime original musical shows on the trolley. On our daytime tours our 90-min air-conditioned tours on Sarasota and Venice history, circus, arts, architecture, metaphysical, Amish and other communities, neighborhoods and things to do. At night, we offer musical interactive entertainment on our Murder Mystery Trolley, Sing-Along Trolley, Sunset Cabaret or our holiday tours for Halloween (Haunted Sarasota) and Christmas (Christmas Carol Trolley) that are fun for the whole family.

What do you value most about your VSC partnership?

Networking opportunities, a focus on the hospitality industry, partnerships with other partners, and support from staff are what we value most about our VSC partnership.

What would visitors find interesting/​intriguing about your business?

Visitors and locals find that they learn something new on our tours about Sarasota or Venice that they never knew before. Most of our guests live here at least part of the year and love bringing their visitors on our many different tours. They tell us that we provide a community service for the area because we offer context, history, background and interesting information that no one else does and we take care of all the driving so they don't have to. They also tell us that they have never had so much FUN learning on a tour or singing along Main Street on our nighttime shows. They also love celebrating special occasions with us for a birthday or anniversary onboard Dolly The Trolley.

If you could describe what you do in one sentence, what would it be?

We create entertaining and informative trolley tour experiences that celebrate Sarasota County's history, culture, arts and business community.