One Spark-ish

[Tacachale]

I've heard that feedback on the conference portion was positive from the creators. If accurate it sounds like they've found a more productive way of connecting (serious) creators with money than the previous model, which never worked as well as hoped.

The "Art Walk, Special Edition" street party portion it went off well, and it's good that it was sustainable. Clearly the previous incarnations were not doable without a patron putting in millions each year. Hopefully now that it's on a sustainable track it can grow sustainably.

The thing I'd question is the $150k the city put into the festival. My understanding is that this is comparable to what they put into the 5-day versions in previous years. We could put that money to much more impactful use than making one monthly Art Walk somewhat bigger. Art Walk is already working just fine without that level of investment; for $150k we could do some pretty amazing *new* programming.

[TheCat]

^ Good point about the $150k. I didn't realize that was happening. So, it sounds like Spark Walk was fully funded by COJ...

[Alexsifakis]

There was a great quote by Ron Littlepage in an article he recently wrote about Hemming:

"This city is a lot like crabs in a pot. If one is reaching for freedom and about to move on to something good, another crab will pull it back down into the pot.
This is especially true for downtown.
For every spurt of momentum for revitalizing downtown, there's a momentum killer."

Let's celebrate our wins. Onespark this year was a big win, by all accounts. Fighting over 150k for Onespark, 500k for hemming, etc, is a momentum killer. For the city to have to spend 150k to get that exposure, that press, those national tech/entrepreneurship experts here - is a bargain.

Let's stop being crabs in a pot.

[Adam White]

There was a great quote by Ron Littlepage in an article he recently wrote about Hemming:

"This city is a lot like crabs in a pot. If one is reaching for freedom and about to move on to something good, another crab will pull it back down into the pot.
This is especially true for downtown.
For every spurt of momentum for revitalizing downtown, there's a momentum killer."

Let's celebrate our wins. Onespark this year was a big win, by all accounts. Fighting over 150k for Onespark, 500k for hemming, etc, is a momentum killer. For the city to have to spend 150k to get that exposure, that press, those national tech/entrepreneurship experts here - is a bargain.

Let's stop being crabs in a pot.

Yeah, the crab pot metaphor is dragged out a lot on this forum.

While it's a fair comment at times, it can also be used as a way to deflect legitimate criticism. I'm not saying that this is the case here, but I would argue that One Spark - regardless of how successful it was this year - has certainly scaled back from what it was before (and what it promised). And that's where the criticism was directed when this thread was started.

[Tacachale]

To be clear, I'm not criticizing the city investing money into One Spark, let alone other events and projects. I think it's great they're continuing to invest. I'm only pointing out that they (meaning we) put the same amount into an event that was essentially a big First Wednesday Art Walk that we previously put into a 5-day festival. I don't think that pointing that out is a "momentum killer".

I think it's awesome that the festival is apparently on more sustainable ground now, and that the conference portion apparently went well. My hope is that either One Spark's street festival grows again (sustainably) to the point that $150k is a solid investment, or that the city scales down the contribution to One Spark and devotes the rest of the money into something that's new. That way we could have both an "Art Walk Special Edition" and an additional Downtown festival.