Glow attendees kept the mood light
By CHRISTINA YOON Special to the Daily Press
SM PIER The business of art was alive and well on Saturday night at Glow, the city’s first all-night art festival. Organizers and local businesses deemed the night a huge success, pointing to the impressive turnout and extra profits at nearby bars and restaurants.
Glow organizer Jessica Cusick, City Hall’s Cultural Affairs manager, had expected between 25,000 and 50,000 attendees. Cusick received initial estimates of at least 75,000 people at its most crowded times with a total of 200,000 during the 12-hour event. Cusick took the huge crowds to be both an encouraging symbol of successful marketing and a point of improvement for the next Glow, which is scheduled for 2010. “We’re looking at possibly changing the time frame to early fall or late spring,” Cusick said. “The area is already at capacity during the summer, so we’re thinking of a time when there’s slightly less pressure on the community.”
Cindy Pfeifer, a manager at Rusty’s Surf Shack, agreed. Rusty’s is on the pier, the site of the largest crowds at the event.
“Summer is generally an incredibly busy time of the year anyway,” she said.“It’s much more beneficial to have it at a time when business is slow.”
Barbara Stinchfield, the Community and Cultural Services director, said that the art at the next Glow event might be more spread out than it was this year to alleviate the pressure of the crowds.
“Maybe there’s a way to have the pier less intensive than it was,” she said. A water wall installation on the beach was turned off for two hours at 2 a.m. in an attempt to dissipate the large crowd, which had exceeded the maximum capacity set by the SMPD and fire marshal.
Pfeifer and other restaurant managers who worked on Saturday night said that visitors’ high spirits downplayed the hectic and sometimes cramped environment.
“I think we were thinking people were just going to see the art, but it turned into much more of a party atmosphere than we anticipated,” said Pfeifer.
T.J. Ramini, the bar manager at Ma’Kai on Ocean Avenue, stayed open all night during Glow. Ma’Kai enjoyed a steady stream of customers all night, despite the fact that the bar could serve only non-alcoholic cocktails after 2 a.m.
“It reminded me of Ibiza — it was a really happy party atmosphere,” Ramini said. “It’s a testament to the people of this area. We were packed, and some people were waiting 15 or 20 minutes for drinks but there were no incidents, no fights, no nonsense.”
This was also the case out on the streets. Santa Monica Police Department spokesman Sgt. Renaldi Thruston said that approximately 50 officers and 34 non-sworn civilian employees were assigned to the event.
On a typical Saturday night at the beach during summer months, there are less than 10 officers assigned to the pier and beach areas. The only security incident of note was when a large group of bicyclists unexpectedly blocked an intersection, and no arrests were made during the night.
Crowds were so eager to help keep order at Glow that they even picked up garbage. Elaine Polachek, the director of the Community Maintenance Department, said that 50 staff members worked throughout the night to assist artists with infrastructure issues related to their pieces and to clean up at the event.
“The really interesting thing about the cleanup was that a lot of people helped, especially at the beach,” she said. “People really cared about returning the venue to the way they found it.”
Polachek said that the beach, pier and Palisades Park were back to their original condition by Monday morning.
Businesses and Glow organizers were not only happy with visitors’ easygoing attitudes but their spending power as well. Although restaurants would not disclose how much money was made during the night, workers agreed that the event attracted endless hungry and thirsty customers who were willing to pay.
“From the looks on my boss’ face, he was very happy,” said Alex Campa, who works at Joe’s Pizza on Broadway. Joe’s stayed open an extra two hours on Saturday until 4 a.m.
“There was a constant flow — this was a first,” Campa said.
The enormous surge in profits for local businesses was a sign of success for organizers who worked with what they considered a small budget for this first-time event.
“Honestly, we pulled off a miracle on a shoestring,” said Cusick of the budget.
Glow used $100,000 in city money and about $220,00 in other funding, including a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and major sponsorship from Starbucks. About a third of the cash went directly to artist commissions for the over 100 pieces displayed during the event.
Stinchfield said that the budget was also helped along by in-kind donations from sponsors. The Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, for example, donated staff time to assist with media relations, advertising and marketing for Glow.
“This was a first-time event so we lived within the budget,” Stinchfield said.
The conservative budget may have led to the small scale of the artworks that some attendees noticed. Others who attended felt there weren’t enough exhibits.
Stinchfield and Cusick said that there will be a more intense fundraising effort next time around.
“It was out of necessity but also out of design,” Stinchfield said of the small size of many of the pieces. “We were fundraising until about May, so it was hard to make commitments to all of the artists early on.”
Stinchfield added that Glow’s curators wanted a mix of large and small pieces.
“We really wanted a range of artists from the small and interactive to the large and visual.”
Some observers, however, thought that perhaps more time and funding should have been invested in the art that so many people came to see.
Chris Hertrich, an artist who lives in West Los Angeles, said that he heard about Glow the day before the event and eagerly anticipated the art installations.
“I was a little disappointed. I was expecting something really spectacular,” he said. “For all the effort I spent parking, it was way too crowded with not much art.”
However, Hertrich agreed with organizers and business owners that the mood was distinctly positive throughout the night.
“It had a really mellow vibe for as many people as there were.”
This positive energy may be what lured grunion to make an appearance. Despite experts’ warnings that the celebrated fish are often scared away by crowds and loud noises, they showed up on the shore late Saturday night.
Cusick said that any adjustments to be made to the next Glow event will be discussed in the fall, when organizers will begin planning and fundraising for the next event. The first priority will be to add images taken during the night to the Glow Web site and recognize all of the event’s sponsors and volunteers.
“Right now it’s about thanking everyone who worked on this,” Cusick said, “It was a coming-together of our creative community and our special natural environment.”
Images from the event and other updates will appear in coming days on the Glow Web site at www.smgov.net/smarts/glow
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 24, 2008. Read the original PDF.