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Vancouver: Street Party Central

But destined to be the victim of success?

By Rob Peters, 3 Jul 2006, TheTyee.ca

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'No fun' no more? Commercial Drive Fest. 2006. Photo by Chris Grabowski.

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This long weekend, chances are you found yourself at a party. Many of those were community or street parties and festivals, and in general, our attendance at these is on the way up. It's leading some people in Vancouver to ask if the city's "no fun" label might soon be a thing of the past.

Vancouverites who go to the city's neighbourhood parties and festivals -- Illuminares, Kitsilano Greek Day, and the Powell Street Festival to name a few summer offerings -- may have noticed something lately: they're getting bigger. While last year's Commercial Drive Festival attracted 25,000 revelers, organizers say this year's drew close to 50,000. Public Dreams Society's Parade of Lost Souls was cancelled this fall due to attendance that exceeded what organizers could accommodate. And the City of Vancouver has seen a significant increase in the number of block party applications in each of the last three years.

It begs the question, when it comes to neighbourhood street parties, does size matter?

Event organizers say the elements of a great block party are the same whether it's large or small: attendee engagement, neighbourhood support and booze control. On these points, Vancouver is quickly learning. But are some of these events victims of their own success? A "neighbourhood" party that attracts tens of thousands can lead to the event losing individual character and can be detrimental for a community.

Vancouver has become a hotbed for block parties, according to Carmen Mills, co-organizer of the recent Commercial Drive Festival, and there are more than 30 small local affairs scheduled in the city this month alone. Why? "If you want to protect your neighbourhood, you don't hide your children; you know your neighbours. That's how you have security," she says.

Too much of a good thing?

But even though Mills says Vancouverites are fortunate that community spirit is blossoming, it's often compromised. Frequently, community events lose their grassroots culture and become large public booze fests. UBC's Arts County Fair though technically not a neighbourhood event, is a classic example of a festival turned drunken wasteland. An entire field of passed out arts, science and engineering majors (to name a few) surrounded by a fence of urine is arguably taking it too far.

So how come the Europeans have been successfully doing this for centuries; how do they have their cake and drink wine too? Planning experts often credit lax liquor regulations and an increased appreciation of the arts as underlying reasons. If you're accustomed to sipping chardonnay on a regular basis at the neighbourhood public park whilst air-conducting Carmina Burana, perhaps the desire to get loaded at a yearly block party is diminished.

Mills believes that the problem with public drinking in North America is that that we tend to associate alcohol with aggression, and lots of anti-social tendencies start to surface. But she says that's not insurmountable: a good block party is about attitudes and self-policing. "You can't be a drunken asshole when you're surrounded by a thousand people who won't put up with it."

Partiers: know thyselves

Familial roots also help to explain the differences in North American and European successes with neighbourhood parties, says UBC professor of community planning Penny Gurstein. The way many North American communities are designed actually breeds alienation. "In older European communities, families have grown up over generations, so they actually know each other in a very deep way," she says. "Whereas in North America we actually have to create our sense of neighbourhood."

So if we must be more deliberate in our efforts to know the Joneses, how do we go about it?

Mills, who was greeted warmly by at least half a dozen passing local residents during our brief interview on Commercial Drive, says it begins with trust. "You have to be really responsible to yourself and to the community to organize this stuff," she says. "When you organize on a principle of trust, it filters all the way down, and all the way up."

Communication and openness, according to Mills, are also essential in putting on a neighbourhood event. "You have to be really open with your neighbourhood, let everyone know what's going to happen and allow them to have input. Everyone has to feel ownership of the event," she says.

But sunshine and happy volunteers are just as important, says the co-organizer of the Commercial Drive Festival, Matt Hern. With the Drive Fest, they were fortunate to have warm weather both years, as well as a large base of enthusiastic volunteers who did almost all of the promo for the event through natural networking, he says. Mills adds that the work has to be fun. If people feel as if the work is unevenly distributed or if they resent what they're doing, something is wrong. "You have to feel like it's fun even when it's disgusting, and you're, say, waiting at a garbage dump."

Not all sunshine

Trust, openness, and communication, however, are often hard to come by. While both organizers were positive about their dealings with the City of Vancouver, in talking about the Commercial Drive Business Association it was less smiles and sunshine. "The business association refused to fund us, once again," Hern said. "They say it's too political, and their exact words were, you're going to do it anyway so why do we have to fund it? I think that'd be the definition of unethical."

Mills, while less scathing in her appraisal, also didn't understand their non-support. She felt it was a difference of values, and a knee-jerk reaction to criticism of cars. "I have a hard time talking about it because I don't quite understand what their problem is," she said. "I think there's a breakdown of trust."

How does the Commercial Drive Business Association respond to this criticism? "The CDBA was delighted with the fantastic turn-out and great job done by the organizers that produced the Commercial Drive Festival. We are pleased to see these events hosted by organizations with the drive and experience to produce them as successfully as the Festival we just enjoyed."

Blandification

The lack of support from the Commercial Drive Business Association isn't the only challenge faced by the Commercial Drive Festival. Gurstein says that when events become too large, you end up with spectators rather than participants. "When 50,000 people show up, it isn't really about building community. We need to think about more events where people can be engaged in creating communities."

Which raises the issue of blandification. When community parties become so large that they attract people from all over the city, do they remain beneficial to a community?

Mills believes that so long as an event remains relevant and wanted by a community, it strengthens the roots of the neighbourhood. "We don't need to be afraid of different aspects that come into the neighbourhood as long as we're strong from the roots up. I mean do you resent it when people come to your party? I mean this is our party. It's for us."

Hern, on the other hand, says he's conflicted about it: "The value of having a lot of people is that you can make a political push on something, but on another level it might be debilitating to a community."

He's already thinking about plans for next year's Commercial Drive Fest that address the problem of maintaining neighbourhood individuality. He'd like to see adjoining streets have their own block parties, with organizers from the Drive Fest taking care of the practicalities -- licenses, permits, and the like. "Each block could have its own kind of character, do its own funky thing, and people who came to the Drive Fest could just wind their way and check out each block. So it could be more of a community participatory event. It would add a whole new element of diversity."

Hern's recommendation for initiating a block party in your own community is a combination of Nike creed and punk rock sentiment: "Just do it. You'll figure it out en route. If you think and plan and spend forever trying to get it just right, it'll never happen."

Rob Peters is on staff of The Tyee.

Know of a good local street party or festival somewhere in BC? We invite you to put it in the comments section, below. [Tyee]

Rob Peters is navigating the harsh vicissitudes of life

10 Comments:

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  • Ruben

    5 years ago

    Comments on "Vancouver: Street Party Central"

    Very interesting. I was just listening to the radio report on border line-ups and ferry sailing-waits, and thinking about the success of our dream is killing the dream. We live in this false promise of freedom; just jaunt away for the weekend, to a Gulf Island, or Port Angeles. But now, so many people are living the same fantasy that there is no longer enough time get to our special getaway.

    The street festivals are definitely facing similar problems. What would you expect in a region of two million people. 50 000 is not such a large number. I think the idea of having side-block parties is very smart.

    How about spinning off other neighbourhood parties? Send an agent to organize an Illuminares Festival in Kitsilano, the West End, etc, but organize them to all occur on the same night. That will keep people in their own neighbourhoods.

    On the other hand, I have been to street parties in Japan that have hundreds of thousands of people, so maybe we can still grow into this.

  • Yammer

    5 years ago

    It's not that there's too much of a good thing, at all. It's that there isn't enough. Therefore every bored ying yang from the West Side comes over to the Drive. If there were simultaneous festivals, e.g. Illuminares or the Day of the Dead, on both the west and east sides then you would go to the one that is closest, thus dividing the size of the crowds.

    What makes me kind of mad about events like the lantern festival is when people think that they are entertainments to consume, like a movie. They just show up and look blankly, no attempt to bring a lantern or to perceive themselves as being integrated into the community.

  • Aimless

    5 years ago

    Engaging people is an art, not a science. I've been involved with an small-town arts society and I know it's a challenge. Mostly it's an internal contradiction in the presenter's mindset: You want to put on an event to bring people in, but that's the producer/consumer relationship: What "product" will best engage your target audience? But thinking like that almost eliminates any possibility for actual engagement.
    A true block party would be one that happens spontaneously, with all participants "organizing" or creating it as it goes along. Alas, with permit requirements, modern busyness, and urban alienation, that's no longer possible. The "grand spectacle" seems to be the only alternative, with token engagement by the participants.
    People still come, even if the event is second-rate, because they need the stimulation, the escape from boredom, almost as much as they neet air and food.

  • Truman Green

    5 years ago

    I think cities and towns should have more of these events because it's only fair that really stupid infant-adults have a place to go where they can see people in funny costumes and stuff--and spectacle--that's it, spectacle.

  • kootowl

    5 years ago

    Well said, Aimless. I believe the challenge is, in fact, creating interactive events, wherein the people you bring in are participants, rather than voyeurs consuming whatever gets produced. It is tough to get past the "token engagement."

    I don't live in the city, but here in the West Kootenays we have an event called All Souls Night around Hallowe'en time. Public Dreams mentored the event, and although there are "performers"-- fire-spinners, storytellers, and a samba corps that leads the lantern procession--there are also opportunities for the people who come out to the event to involve themselves.

    Matt Hern's advice echoes what the mentors from PD told us: "Just do it...even if it's not huge, even if only a few people show up the first year." Trying to go too big, in a small town, right off the bat is going to create problems. Let the event grow at its own rate, and learn from mistakes as you go along. If you've got the vision, and you've got the energy and enthusiasm, the event will take on a life of its own.

    Kudos, also, to the organizers of the Manna Festival (?) in Roberts Creek, who invite participants to paint in a giant mandala for a week prior to their event each year, and then get everyone dancing and grooving on it after the whole thing's sealcoated. They put a lot of work into making that event interactive. The performance at sundown by the Mythmakers theatre company (on the mandala) is superb, too.

  • canuck_cougar

    5 years ago

    I loved the First Annual Car Fee Festival on the Drive. It felt magic and I felt fortunate to be there to experience it. The festival this year was a huge mass of people slowly wandering up and down Commercial Drive. Granted, the World Cup attracted a lot of folks who might not have ordinarily attended. It was frustrating -- we couldn't see the performers, let alone get close to them. The only time time it felt like "community" to me was when we took a break from the crowd and hung out on the side streets. I'm amazed the Commercial Drive Bus. Assoc. refused to support the Fesitval. There were certainly a lot of stores and restaurants doing a roaring business because of the festival. There also seemed to be many business people hawking their wares from street side tables! The street sellers were a feature that I thought actually commercialized the festival which I did not appreciate this year.

    Illuminaires has also been a victim of it's success. I attended the first 2 at Trout Lake and when it became masses of people driving in from all over the city to gawk and not participate I bailed the following year.

    Bravo to all the volunteers who create the festivals and block parties! I appreciate your commitment to community. I too am a volunteer for a yearly event and even though I put in hundreds of sometimes stressful hours each spring/summer I love it precisely because of the community it helps bring together.

  • mhoule

    5 years ago

    canuck_cougar, I agree with you on your summation of Illuminaires. I would also add that it has become "festivalized" - you know, when the mini doughnuts/ glowing headbands & trinkets/ lemonade stand stuff takes over and turns it into "just another festival." Perhaps it's time to (a) restrict advertising to just the community, (b) forget about the "festival" merchants who blandify the event and (c) as others have said, simultaneously have events in other neighbourhoods across the city. Perhaps this will help keep this amazing community event in the community. Or charge $10 to anyone with ID that shows they live outside the area, essentially having them pay to gawk (yes, that's a joke!).

    The Commercial Drive street festival was indeed mayhem, but hopefully the world cup won't coincide next year. There's something very liberating about walking down the middle of Commercial Drive without having to dodge traffic on the newly paved racing strip (or so it now feels).

  • darcy.mcgee

    5 years ago

    Quote:
    A "neighbourhood" party that attracts tens of thousands can lead to the event losing individual character and can be detrimental for a community.

    I kind of like how this got thrown out without any explanation. It certainly establishes that this is not journalism, but opinion.

    Toronto's Taste of the Danforth certainly expanded in a way that could not have been forseen; it wasn't detrimental to that neighbourhood.

    I suppose when people wearing suits start showing up on The Drive it could be considered bad. I don't see how, but I suppose it could be.

  • emmaluna

    5 years ago

    We live in a time when festivals are definitely victims of their own successes. Historically, the magic of festivals is intrinsically tied to their natures:
    - temporary, transient, ephemeral
    - intense (short duration, rooted in ritual and celebration)
    - recurring, seasonal, cyclical
    - innovative (distinct from what is available in the mainstream, year-round offerings), therefore vehicles for originality and experimentation
    - traditional, with continuity from one year to the next
    - vulnerable; nonprofit, small organizational support, uncertain, unpredictable environment, tied to the local community.
    But when you consider the kind of events discussed in this article, especially in light of the sheer number of them, you realize that some of these qualities are being compromised. When each festival is fighting to have its voice in a sea of similar events, all attended by the same people, we lose the ephemeral nature that is core to a festival's value. The more festivals there are, the less each festival is able to offer something different or unique. Each one is 'just another festival.'
    I try to limit the number of such events that I attend, in order that each one feel special. Otherwise, it's like eating strawberries in January. Yeah, you can do it, and it might even seem enjoyable, but it chips away at the magic of the strawberry in June that you've been waiting for all year.

  • trophycase

    5 years ago

    What am I reading? Two festivals to keep people in their own neighbourhoods? Too many people at the Parade of Lost Souls? The reason it's called No Funcouver is for exactly what's going on here in this discussion. The people of Vancouver hate people.

    Someone refered to the Commercial Drive Festival as Mayhem. What? I live on the Drive and walked throught the festival with my one year old daughter in a sling. She was smiling and looking at all the people, who were all pretty much happy to be around other people, whether they came to walk without cars or cheer soccer teams. I didn't see any mayhem.

    I was also at the Lantern Festival and the Parade of Lost Souls and if Vancouver or the organizers have a problem with the number of people who were there it's their problem. Emmaluna perfectly describes the control freak hippie politics behind these festivals. Most people don't give a rat's ass about the comprimised qualities that she laments. I know the organizers of Public Dream festival subscribe to that kind of control freakishness. Seriously, If you want to screen who comes to your party, I mean if you only want a certain type, like say the kind who only eat magic strawberries in June, then have it in your house. But what the organizers of these festivals need to realize is that if they open it up to the public, the public will show.

    I've been to Carribana in Toronto,Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and the Detriot Electonic Music Festival, a four day free extravaganza in Hart Plaza. People travel from all over the world to go to these festivals. The problem in Vancouver is people from other neighbourhoods? And the number of people at these festivals should make anyone complaining about the numbers here blush with embarrassment.

    Here's a phrase for you control freaks. Let the good times roll.

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