Open House Chicago is this weekend

In terms of marketing promotion, I am a big proponent of "Open Doors/Doors Open" events for:

• Museums
• Architecture, and 
• Historic Preservation.

They are weekend or all week events where historic sites, buildings, museums, etc., are open to the public for free, and many of the sites aren't necessary open to the public at other times of the year.

Some communities mix the participants, with museums and architecture both,  I've written in the past about such events in Toronto, New York City, and Pittsburgh, and even London for  

• Gardens, plus
• Agriculture related weekend festivals, like for Loudoun County, Virginia and the Montgomery County Agriculture Reserve.

Then there are also:

• artist studio and gallery tours, plus
• backyard chicken coop tours
• bike tours of various sorts, etc.

Commercial districts and the arts.  Not to mention the various commercial district related events like "First Fridays" and the "First Friday Art Stroll" in Ogden, Utah, "Second Thursdays," etc., usually focused around the arts, with participation by local retailers as well.

Ogden

Plus, the Smithsonian Institution sponsors "Museum Day Live," which we just missed, as it was September 18th (although it should be for a weekend, it puts too much on the institutions for one day, making it not a particularly congenial day for staff or patrons).

This weekend, October 15th and 16th, is "Open House Chicago" featuring significant architecture, sites, and walking trails that will be freely open to the public ("Open House Chicago allows you to tour Chicagoland’s beautiful sites," WLS/ABC).

WRT historic preservation, I think about it at the neighborhood scale in terms of "house tours" and item #22 in "What would be a "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for DC's cultural ecosystem," suggests a city-wide Doors Open event in DC.  

 

Later, in the comments I suggested that culture-related events can be organized at the neighborhood scale also, like how in DC, the Dupont-Kalorama Museum Consortium has organized a similar event for almost 40 years, called "Walk Weekend."

 

Interestingly, a couple weeks ago was The Avenues Studio Tour in that neighborhood of Salt Lake City, and it was a kind of combination art studio and house tour, as many of the places, you ended up seeing a goodly part of the house as well.

Back when newspapers were more flush, the Toronto Star sponsored Doors Open Toronto and even published a guide in the newspaper, which was also distributed at participating sites.