by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
There’s a lot of bad news in headlines and on television these days. The housing crisis. The mortgage crisis. Gasoline prices going up every day and predictions a gallon will cost more than $4 by summer.
There’s also the possibility of empty seats in the visiting dignitaries section for the Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony in Beijing. That’s assuming the torch ever arrives.
Based on all that, Jim Bailey, president of Bailey Publishing and chair of Mayor John Peyton’s Downtown Action Committee, said he believes people need a break and want to have a little fun — and that creates a perfect opportunity to help people do just that in Downtown.
The recent success of the City Recreation and Community Services Department’s JaxParks “Movies in the Park” series at Treaty Oak Park shows an event doesn’t have to be on the magnitude of the Jacksonville Jazz Festival or the annual Light Parade on the St. Johns River to bring people downtown. The first installment of the outdoor movie event on the Southbank drew more than 600 people, mostly families, to see “Madagascar.” And last week’s “Ghostbusters” showing drew 800.
“It went better than we expected,” said Terry Lorince, executive director of Downtown Vision Inc., one of the series sponsors. “Most of the people who came to see the movie were from Jacksonville, but we had a family from Fernandina Beach and another from St. Augustine. We also had a family who was staying at the Omni. What really made it work was having free parking at the Suddath Garage.”
Lorince also said the series is being promoted with a low-cost, grassroots marketing effort limited to a few flyers and lots of word-of-mouth, particularly on the Internet.
Bailey pointed out having many smaller events could fill in the gaps in the calendar between Downtown’s signature events like the Jazz Festival, World of Nations, 4th of July and the Light Parade. He then asked each person in the room to suggest an event that could be produced at a low cost but would have a high entertainment value.
For more than an hour, ideas were flying around the room, including:
• An outdoor movie at the Main Street Park after Art Walk with a more mature theme than the “Movies in the Park” selections.
• Reviving the old River Rally, a mid-week riverfront happy hour.
• Once-a-month street parties at locations such as Hemming Plaza or East Bay Street. Nothing complicated, just live music and refreshments.
• A rugby weekend with matches held at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, building on the success of the recent Australia Day Challenge.
• A “Winter Wonderland” in December with manufactured snow, Santa Claus, holiday decorations and ice skating, either at Veterans Memorial Arena or at a temporary outdoor rink. A Christmas parade was also suggested.
Theresa O’Donnell Price, the City’s director of special events, said this year’s 4th of July celebration will take place all weekend and will feature fireworks on the river both Friday (Independence Day) and Saturday.
Committee member and Omni Hotel general manager Scott Stuckey said he would work with the other Downtown hoteliers to create a package with a special room rate for the 4th of July weekend. “We’re usually pretty empty that weekend, so why not?” he said.
Bailey said the work the committee is charged to do is the same as a certain type of chemical reaction, one that uses a catalyst to cause other compounds to clump together to create a greater effect.
“What we’re doing here is flocculating,” he said.
Photos by Max Marbut