In 1980, year three of the festival, the Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts (COTA) officially comes into being as its own organization, when it separates from the DWG Chamber of Commerce and the first COTA Board of Directors is formed. Bob Doney, well known local artist, creates the first full-size festival poster, and a COTA Festival album is recorded. Theatre and classical music are performed on main stage, in addition to the usual great jazz, and that stage is no longer just some tables in the street. Rilke could have put it just like this, strolling through the Jardin des Plantes, contemplating tigers, dreaming of Lester Young:

Only he whose bright lyre
Has sounded in shadows
May, looking onward, restore
His infinite praise.