This Friday: DC's Art All Night Event | Once again, too much of a good thing

I've commented in the past about "Art All Night," modeled after similar events in other cities like Paris and Toronto.  The event is held in the evening and overnight hours. 

-- "DC Art all Night, Saturday September 23rd," 2017

Unlike events in the other cities, which are tightly bounded geographically, DC's event is held in multiple neighborhoods simultaneously.

I've argued that this is a waste of resources, especially for those communities that are less central and or less popular.

And obviously, the city arts establishment hasn't paid any attention, since this year the number of participating communities is greater than last year's. These neighborhoods are participating: Congress Heights; Deanwood Heights*; Dupont Circle; H Street; Minnesota Avenue*; North Capitol; Shaw; and Tenleytown. (* = new in 2018)

-- Art All Night DC, Saturday September 29th, 2018

Here are my comments on the subject from my response to the DC Cultural Plan Draft document, submitted in February.

======
... DC should consider developing and sponsoring an annual city wide “Doors Open” event as a way to highlight the local arts and culture ecosystem in a manner that is distinct from the federal/nationally-oriented assets.

Doors Open events are held in many cities in Europe and North America. On our continent, Toronto, New York City, Pittsburgh, and Milwaukee are some of the places that sponsor such events. In Toronto, the Star newspaper is media sponsor for the event and publishes a special guide in the hard copy newspaper.

Note that similar more localized events are sponsored by the Dupont-Kalorama Museums Consortium in June and the Galleries on Book Hill in Georgetown (usually extending to the Katzen Center at AU, Dumbarton Oaks Museum, and the Krieger Museum) hold a similar event in November called “Do the Loop.” And Cultural Tourism DC sponsors Walking Town, a week of outdoor tours on foot and by bike, and a “Doors Open” event with embassies.

These events need to be pulled into a more integrated calendar of programming.

It helps to create a typology of event types. One type of event is regular and recurring such as the various “First Friday” type events across the city such as in Petworth or Dupont Circle (or a farmers market or regular craft fair). Another is neighborhood/business district specific, such as the Georgetown Glow Festival. Finally are multi-site simultaneous events such as “Art All Night.”

Note that multi-site short term simultaneous events are likely a poor use of resources. Art All Night is sponsored by various DC Government agencies and implemented mostly by Main Street organizations. But held in five to seven neighborhoods at once, over a few hour period, with long distances between sites, and including both popular and less popular destinations makes for “an event” that is too diffuse and spread out, making it difficult to go to more than one district in the short period of time the event is running, and maybe people don't even want to go to more than one, especially when their choices include more popular and less popular destinations.

But think of all the planning and other efforts--social, community, and organizational capital--that are required to successfully organize and present a slate of events in each of the participating districts. This organizing is wasted if it doesn't reach an audience.

By contrast “Nuit Blanche” events in other cities like Toronto or Paris are offered over much tighter geographies.

Alternatively, focus and concentrate. I suggest making Art all Night a rotating event operating on a district scale but marketed as a city wide program. It could be held most months, like various "First Friday", "Second Thursday," "Third Saturday," Monthly Arts Walk type activities held in various arts and entertainment districts across the globe.

But instead of being offered in multiple districts simultaneously, each month’s event should be held in one specific district. This would allow each neighborhood group to organize its Nuit Blanche event over a longer period of time, but also increases the likelihood of more media attention in advance of the event, as well as getting a much greater audience than is possible when competing against four to six other places for the same audience.

A framework for planning events for time of the year (season), month, day of the week, (time of day), and scale (city wide, neighborhood, regional, etc.) was proffered by one of the teams submitting proposals for the 11th Street Bridge Park and should be examined with the aim of developing a more robust event planning framework operating at the city wide and “community” or neighborhood scale.

Programming planning framework for parks, public squares, commercial districts, Balmori & Associates