Broken City Lab

Watching our City Council mulling over where (if at all) to put trees around the newly proposed Performance Stage/Festival Plaza located on the Detroit River, I’m thinking about where festivals should be held.

In our fine city, festivals are funneled to certain festival areas. The main one is in front of Caesar’s Windsor, on the riverfront, with a humongous slab of concrete playing host to all the foot traffic.

As most readers of this blog know, last year’s Phog Phest took place on the street, far away from the Festival Plaza (or other predetermined festival areas). With regard to our event, it made more sense to have the event smack dab in the middle of the street in front of the venue being celebrated.

I’ve been told, time and again, that Bluesfest originated on Victoria Avenue, which is the street perpendicular to University Avenue, where Phog Phest was held. In its heyday, it has moved to the downtown Festival Plaza, and became its own one-stop-shop event.

After our festival, we were asked over and over if we were going to do another one. A bigger one. Something perhaps at the Festival Plaza. Actually, before we even held our event, I spoke with an event organizer who seemed bewildered that I was hosting it on the street, away from the river.

If Phog Phest was at the river, the overflow of customers wouldn’t have flown into Milk Coffee Bar, Empire Lounge, California Sushi (who was nice enough to send us a sushi platter during the event!), Artcite and other neighbours. It felt good to share the event with them.

If I ever choose to host another event in Windsor, I will focus my energies on situating it in the streets. Every time.
When an event is held on the waterfront, or in a park, it feels like an escape. A disconnection. Which is the point I guess. But when there’s an event downtown, most of the contributors to the success of that event park their car, and walk directly to the Festival Plaza (as little distance as humanly possible). They then celebrate, walk back to their car, and disappear.

There’s little surprise that most festival-going Windsorites and Detroiters have no idea what the landscape of the business district looks like.
Of course, naysayers will comment on this post saying that there’s nothing to see/experience downtown in the business district. That’s an argument for a different day. Few Windsorites step outside of their comfort zone to actually experience the plethora of Windsor’s independent businesses ANYWHERE in Windsor…not just downtown. That aside, we’re ignorant to our own surroundings because we don’t stand in the spaces where these places call home 7 days a week.

New entrepreneurs potentially looking for places to put their businesses aren’t lured by the downtown area, if the only time they come downtown is to park, run to the river, dance, and run back to their car. Potential customers for these current downtown businesses are in the same boat. You can’t spend money with a locally owned business if you’ve never walked past it, recognized it, and located it with your own eyes.

In my humble opinion, the excitement of experiencing a familiar space is by changing it up once in a while. Experiencing the streets as a celebratory space is far more enticing to me than retreating to the riverfront, sequestered away from all the businesses, all the areas hungry for activity. I’d much rather see the reciprocal benefits to the surrounding downtown community by locating festivals within exploration distance of the average Windsorite. If someone wants a can of pop, an espresso, chicken wings, or sunglasses, it’d be nice if they could look within the streets of taxpaying business owners to find those things rather than the current option at Festival Plaza events.

That said, I wonder what some of the readers of this blog would say would be exciting non-pre-determined festival spaces. Any ideas?

One of my ideas, shaped by my experience with the last festival, is Indian Road in west Windsor (Sandwich).
Here’s a quick vid produced by Broken City Lab showing this derelict space –

Indian Road (Windsor, Ontario) from brokencitylab on Vimeo.

The reason I thought of going there for a festival was the favourable distance between Indian Road and the very vocal minority of residents in downtown who believe that the streets should be a mausoleum. As the DWBIA knows well, residents put up a fuss because of the noise created by 2009’s new series of road closures for the freedom to mosey in the downtown enjoying food, faces, and music without fear of car traffic. They will likely have their hands full defending the reprisal of these events which breathed new life into the downtown in the summer of 2009.

I’ve imagined a life-bringing event, existing on Indian Road, with students, food, music, akin to the Dally In The Alley held in Detroit.
Residents would likely welcome the attention, the activity, the appreciation of their space. It could only serve to bring more attention to their plight for a solution to the blight they’re experiencing.
Best of all, residents would likely take to the street, to the smiling faces and action, to experience their street in a way that they never thought possible since their woes began.

Anyone want to help me plan something over there?

In closing, I’d like to say that I think that the newly proposed riverfront festival space is perfect for some events. It’d be nice if we lured in a 3-day jazz fest or something that would encourage outsiders to come to town for a long weekend and experience Windsor for the first time. Theatrical events outdoors would be cool too. I think that newcomers to Windsor are more apt to explore if they’re lured here by a big-time ticketed festival experience. They’re here because they’re curious. My hope is to encourage our own residents to do more than to avoid downtown for a carnival or festival, only to leave the core with no more awareness of the space than when they left the house.

But my choice, when scheduling festivities, will be in the streets.

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