Your weekend outlook: by the numbers

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More than 700 artists will be showing off their work at three different art fairs in Minneapolis.

There have already been a couple of weekends Marianne has declared must be the "biggest" or "best" weekends for the arts in the Twin Cities. This weekend puts them to shame. Follow along as we "do the numbers:"

9

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That's the number of musicians performing in this year's line-up for Red House Barnfest, put on by Red House Records. The Barnfest starts at 1:30pm Saturday at the Hobgoblin Music Outdoor Amphitheater outside of Red Wing, and features such acts as Storyhill, Danny Schmidt, Ruth Moody of The Wailin' Jennys, and Pieta Brown.

76

There are 76 poetry slam teams from all over the country in St. Paul this week to compete in the National Poetry Slam. The competition is in St. Paul this year because local team "Soap Boxing" are the defending champions. Competing rounds are taking place in 11 different venues all over downtown St. Paul.

169

The Minnesota Fringe Festival gets underway tonight, and over the next 11 days will present 169 different acts at 19 different venues. This is a festival primarily for theater lovers, but includes stand-up comedy, improv and dance.

724

That's the number of artists who will be presenting their work this weekend in three different art fairs in Minneapolis: Powderhorn Art Fair, Uptown Art Fair, and the Loring Park Art Festival.

2500

2500 degrees: that's how hot the furnace at Franconia Sculpture Park will be for its annual Hot Metal Pour, in which visitors can buy and carver their own molds, and then create their own metal sculptures.

All in all, you have the opportunity to see more than one thousand artists and/or acts this weekend - whether they're painting, pouring hot metal, acting, dancing, slamming poetry or playing the guitar. Not bad. In fact, that's pretty dang amazing.