Arts Northwest is one of the finest booking conferences and performing arts organizations in the United States. It is most well known for its superior showcase format that has tremendous presenter participation and only the highest of artistic quality.

We are a unique partnership organization that has been serving presenters and artists for 25 years. It has its roots in Washington's "SWAP" (State of Washington Arts Presenters) and Oregon's Northwest Booking Conference. Eli Ashley and Lynne Waring were SWAP's executive directors in the early 80's and Leslie Alexander Tuomi was the Oregon Arts Commission staff member who developed the Northwest Booking Conference.

We can thank the National Endowment for the arts for funding the expansion of SWAP into SWAP Northwest, which included presenters from Oregon, Washington and Idaho. One of the first presenter networking events took place in Lake Wilderness, outside of Seattle in the early 1980's. This event connected presenters, provided the first ANW mentor opportunities and created expanded tours for artists.

To maintain a communications network among presenters of performing arts events throughout the Northwest region of the United States and Canada.

To provide services to Northwest presenters which enhance their professional and booking capabilities to present performances of regional, national and international significance to Northwest audiences.

To promote booking opportunities for artists that reside in the Northwest to tour within and without the Northwest region.

In the early 1980s, the Booking conference was always held in Eugene Oregon. The state of Oregon was solely responsible for the conference and almost all the artists that showcased were from Oregon. In 1985, the first efforts to make Arts Northwest a true tri-state based conference were initiated. Oregon and Washington were struggling financially to produce a conference and Idaho was beginning to make investments in arts presenting. At this time, Marilyn Sabella as Idaho Commission on the Arts Chair convened and chaired a tri-state task force to explore the possibility of having a booking conference which was supported by all three state arts agencies to service the three state region. The booking conference as we now know it was born with the support of Idaho, Washington and Oregon Arts Commissions. As a result, the conference started rotating between the three states to a variety of cities.