Longtime attendees of Vashon Center for the Arts annual art auction will notice some changes to the big fundraising event this year.

The gala, themed “Masquerade,” will unfold on Friday, Sept. 21, and Saturday, Sept. 22, and as usual, there will tasty food and flowing wine, as well as competitive spending to take home works by island artists.

But in a new move, the location of the auction will be different. In recent years, the event has been held in a large tent, erected in VCA’s parking lot. This year all the action will happen inside the expansive digs of VCA’s new building, which opened in 2016.

Live auctions will take place in the Katherine L. White Hall, with the lobby and gallery used for mingling by guests, silent auctions and an after-party with a deejay and dancing on Friday night. On Saturday, the lobby and gallery will be set up for a catered dinner to take place after the close of the auction.

The price point is $35 for auction tickets, which are still available for both nights this year. More expensive tickets, at $175, which include the Saturday night dinner, have already sold out.

Kevin Hoffberg, VCA’s executive director, said he thought it was time for a change.

“I’m totally excited and a little bit scared because we haven’t done it this way before,” Hoffberg said. “But we wanted to make this more of a celebration, to make it more accessible, to use our building more, and to change the experience so people will pay more attention.”

The switch in locale, Hoffberg said, will also make it possible for the event to include performances by students at Vashon Center for Dance, who have choreographed special pieces to debut at the auction.

There will be plenty of eye-popping art at the event, with work by longtime local luminaries, including Ray Pfortner, Pam Ingalls, Victoria Adams, Donna Romero, Ted Kutscher, Ilse Reimnitz, Jayne Quig, Kaj Wyn Berry, Sharon Munger, Carol Schwennesen, Elaine Summers, Kristin Reitz-Green and many more. Several elegant stoneware and ceramic works, gifted to VCA from the estate of Kayoko Skidmore, will also be up for bid.

In all, 120 artists will have work in the auction, which will also include vacation getaways such as a week in a château in Provence that sleeps 10, and a dream weekend in New York boasting tickets to “Hamilton” or another Broadway show as well as accommodations overlooking Lincoln Center.

But there will also be plenty more moderately priced temptations, including getaways that are closer to home, hand-woven baskets, photographs and other small works of art.

Importantly, there will be a direct ask, on both nights, for support of VCA’s scholarship fund. Last year, VCA’s auction-goers raised their paddles to donate $100,000 to provide scholarships for the organization’s many arts education programs.

Hoffberg said he is hoping for a similar take for scholarships this year, as well as $80,000 to $90,000 more in auction proceeds to help support general operations for the organization.

The auction comes after a busy and sometimes tumultuous year for the venerable island organization.

In February, VCA held a contentious town-hall meeting attended by approximately 200 islanders, many of whom expressed concerns about VCA’s commitment to local artists.

Shortly after the meeting, it was announced that VCA’s then-director, Susan Warner, would depart the organization and that Hoffberg, a board member with a long career in financial and marketing sectors, would take the reins on an interim basis as VCA’s new leader. His official appointment as VCA’s new executive director came in early June.

Later that same month, The Beachcomber published an investigative article that detailed previously undisclosed decisions made by the organization in 2014 regarding the financing of construction of its new $20 million building. A flurry of letters to the editor and op-eds in the paper ensued, expressing a variety of views on VCA’s actions and the article.

But under Hoffberg’s short tenure, VCA has also seen a resurgence of community-focused activity. The organization added seven new members to its board of directors in July and has embarked on both an ambitious fundraising campaign and a months-long process to create a new strategic plan.

The arts center also recently rolled out a robust schedule of fall and winter events, which include two lecture series, family programming, concerts and a provocative gallery exhibit, set to open in October, filled with local work related to the #metoo movement.

Perhaps most notably, Hoffberg also spearheaded the presentation of VCA’s first-ever Vashon Summer Arts Fest, a two-month long celebration of Vashon’s vibrant art scene that included exhibitions, demonstrations and performances by 117 local artists.

On a tour of VCA’s gallery, where auction work has been exhibited since Sept. 7, Hoffberg proudly pointed out work by several artists who had exhibited their work at VCA for the first time during the Arts Fest. He also noted that some other more well-known island artists, who had strongly criticized VCA at the town hall meeting, had also exhibited work at the Fest and will have artwork in the auction as well.

“The Summer Arts Fest was a wonderful down payment on the future,” Hoffberg said, adding that under his leadership, VCA had made great strides toward repairing its relationship with local artists, and that he had more original ideas for the future up his sleeve.

“I think I’ve brought a lack of preconception about what an arts organization could be or do,” he said. “There were people who thought Vashon Summer Arts Fest was a lunatic idea and wouldn’t work, but I didn’t know any better. I didn’t come with years of baggage, so we did it. And we’re going to do different things around the auction, too.”

For more information and tickets about the art auction, visitvashoncenterfor thearts.org.