Adele Henderson's solo show at Buffalo Arts Studio opens with Trimania on Saturday.

On Saturday, one of Buffalo's great, not-to-be-missed art parties returns, a year early

Giant old industrial buildings filled with art exhibits and installations, dance, performance pieces, live music, food and booze, and thousands of people—such mammoth art parties have become one of Buffalo’s cultural signatures, as much as the iconic facade of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Or the smell of Cheerios at the mouth of the Buffalo River.

This Saturday, April 13, marks a return engagement of one of the grandest of these free-for-all celebrations: Trimania, a party thrown by Buffalo Arts Studio in its home at the Tri-Main Center (2495 Main Street). In the past Trimania has been held once every three years; the last was in 2011, so we weren’t due for another iteration until 2014. Happily, the fun has arrived early. Beginning at 8pm—or at 7pm, if you spring for a ticket to the VIP pre-party—the Tri-Main will host 26 bands, 12 dancers and performers, 77 visual artists, comedians, and poets, and a few thousand revelers in what has always been an overwhelming and joyous cacophony of art and music.

It’s really almost pointless to list the participating artists: Odds are, if you’ve admired an exhibit at Buffalo Arts Studio or any of the city’s dozens of small galleries in the last couple years, the person responsible for the work will be there. There will be art produced on site by Max Collins, OGRE, and Chuck Tingley; performance art by Kristi Meal, Lukia Costello, Tara Sasiadek, and Jon Furman; solo exhibitions by James A. Allen and Adele Henderson in the Buffalo Arts Studio Galleries; comedy by the Dykes of Hazard; dance by the Stripteasers and Fleuron Rouge; music by Jack Topht, All of Them Witches, David Kane, DJ Cutler, and many more…many more visual artists, many more musicians, many more dancers, many more of everything.

There will be beer and wine, of course. And because it is an art party, Lloyd Taco Truck will be there, along with food from Tri-Main’s Lunch Box Cafe.

Trimania also offers an opportunity to tour the studios of many of the 70 or so working artists for whom Buffalo Arts Studio’s 15,000 square feet is a haven. The city’s other big art parties—e.g. Hallwalls’s Artist and Models, the grandmother of them all; Squeaky Wheel’s Peepshow; and the new kid on the block, Echo Art Fair—are essentially itinerant affairs, taking over an interesting location for a night and giving free rein to participating artists and audiences to transform the space. Trimania allows for the same possibilities but is at the same time an open house for Buffalo Arts Studio, which began renting studio space to artists 1991, opened its first galleries a year later, and in 1998 developed an arts education program that continues to expand in scope and reach.

Tickets are available in advance for $20 at Buffalo Arts Studio, Record Theatre, Rust Belt Books, Talking Leaves, and Western New York Book Arts Center. Tickets are $25 at the door. Tickets to the VIP pre-party are $75, which may sound steep, but it includes food and a couple free drinks at a less-crowded bar. For more information, visit www.buffaloartsstudio.org.