The year 2012 promises to be a busy one for local arts organizations.

The Beaufort County Arts Council will celebrate its 40th anniversary in the new year.

The Beaufort County Concert Association will begin offering free admission to service members, their children, wives or husbands.

The current year is ending on a somewhat sour note for county arts patrons. Washington’s Turnage Theater closed indefinitely because of financial difficulties, and the Christian-themed Rocky Hock Playhouse left the city to return to its previous home base of Edenton.

But the new year should be filled with celebrations of the visual and performing arts in Beaufort County, despite these deprivations.

“It is going to be a significant year for us,” said Joey Toler, executive director of the arts council. “We’re looking forward to giving the past its due attention, but also looking forward to what we can bring to the community in the future. It’s still a challenge; it always is.”

Arts council leaders plan to celebrate their nonprofit’s 40th birthday with 40 events — some of them one-time, special occasions, others part of BCAC’s normal schedule.

The festivities begin with a kick-off reception set for Jan. 14 at the Washington Civic Center.

Arts council “patrons will be asked to contribute work that has been purchased from the Fine Arts Show over the last 40 years,” reads a schedule of the year’s happenings. These works will be on display during the reception, which will also feature tributes to BCAC co-founder Louise Lane, who passed away recently.

The Beaufort County Concert Association inaugurates the leap year with a performance by The Water Coolers comedy troupe at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 10. The show takes place at the Washington High School Performing Arts Center.

The Water Coolers’ revue centers on life in an office, and the actors invest their presentation “with very sharp comic timing and enormous energy,” said Gene Geesey, president of the concert association.

The association’s board has amended its bylaws to permit single-event ticket sales for The Water Coolers performance and other selected shows, Geesey related.

In past years, the group has sold only season tickets, which are available for $45 per person, or $55 per head for reserved seating in the first 12 rows of the theater.

The board also opted to extend a free-admission offer to service members and their families, Geesey said. The service members’ admission provision applies to all of BCCA’s offerings, he said.

The association’s season continues Feb. 7 with a concert by guitarist Edgar Cruz. Then, on March 22, “American Spirit” takes to the stage.

“This is a large group, a production number, that’s put on by Live On Stage,” the agency through which BCCA books its acts, Geesey explained.

“It’s sort of uplifting and reminding us of our roots and giving us pride in our country again,” he said.

Auditions will be held for a chorus of 20 to 25 local people to perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” during the production. Students from all of the county’s high schools will be tapped to sing in the chorus, Geesey said.

Beaufort County is home to other arts groups too numerous to mention here, but among the entities tentatively planning events are the Beaufort County Traditional Music Association, the Beaufort County Choral Society, the Way Off Broadway Players theater troupe and others.

For more information, visit www.beaufortcountyartscouncil.org/ or www.gobcca.org.