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Get ready to pull an all-nighter
JAMES ADAMS
Saturday, December 31, 2005
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For many Torontonians, New Year's Eve is the longest night's journey into day, the one time in the year when they party a lot heartier and longer than usual, and suffer the blissful consequences.
But nine months from now, on Sept. 30, these same Torontonians are going to be asked -- heck, encouraged -- to stay up late -- really, really late -- and the people doing the exhorting are none other than the municipal officials of Toronto. Fortunately, Sept. 30 is a Saturday -- and at 7 p.m. that day, the city's first Nuit Blanche (that's French for "white night,") gets started and runs through until sunrise, roughly 7 a.m., on Sunday.
The idea for Nuit Blanche originated in 2000 in Paris (where else?), as a sort of hello to the 21st century. Organized by the civic government, it marked its fourth anniversary last Sept. 30 with a 12-hour free festival that saw the Louvre stay open, admission-free, until midnight, and the Pompidou Centre until 7 a.m. In the meantime, among other events, a Brazilian musical festival raged from dusk to dawn at Les Halles while bistros, movie houses and theatres stayed open late. An estimated one million people joined in the fun, some of them using the free bicycles -- there were 2,000 in total -- provided by the mayor's office to travel from venue to venue.
Since its inauguration, the Nuit Blanche idea has been picked up by Rome, Brussels, Istanbul and, to a lesser extent, Montreal.
Toronto's premiere edition is being orchestrated by the city's culture division as part of the big "TO Live with Culture" promotion, to which $6-million has been allocated for 2006 ($5.5-million from the city, $500,000 from the federal government's "cultural capitals" program). Details are still being worked out, reports city culture project manager Gregory Nixon, but the central hook for Nuit Blanche Toronto is going to be an epic art gallery crawl based in three major cultural zones: Queen Street West, west of Bathurst, the Royal Ontario Museum/Gardiner Museum-Yorkville axis, and the Art Gallery of Ontario-Ontario College of Art and Design district.
Public and private cultural institutions in these zones will let revellers wander in and out of their spaces free of charge until dawn. Many are planning to mount Nuit Blanche-specific exhibitions, installations and performance pieces.
"Basically, we're looking for maximum buy-in from any cultural institution that wants to participate," Mr. Nixon says.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Paris event includes a heavy shopping element, as posh stores there have discovered that revellers like to mix couture with culture.
According to Mr. Nixon, the retail component in Paris "happened on its own, as a kind of organic phenomenon," without the official imprimatur of Nuit Blanche organizers.
Mr. Nixon says he wouldn't be surprised if, say, the merchants of Yorkville decide to entertain extended hours on Sept. 30 to lure some of the crowds visiting the area's many private galleries or the nearby ROM. "We don't have any objection to that," he says. In fact, the city is going to be encouraging bars and restaurants in the three zones "to stay open until 4 a.m. and keep the whole thing rocking."
Mr. Nixon predicts Nuit Blanche Mach 1 "is going to be huge." Not as huge as the Paris party, mind you, or the one in Rome, which since its start in September, 2003, has lured 1.5 million revellers, but big enough to contribute some of the 500,000 new visitors and $120-million in economic activity that the city wants to see from its "Live with Culture" campaign.
"The difficult thing will be getting people over the threshold the first time," Mr. Nixon says, "getting them to commit to this new thing that's a little experimental, a little offbeat."
But he's convinced it's going to succeed and become as popular, in its fashion, as Doors Open, the city's weekend-long celebration of its architectural heritage.
******
I'm excited about this event!
Louroz
JAMES ADAMS
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Printer Friendly version
For many Torontonians, New Year's Eve is the longest night's journey into day, the one time in the year when they party a lot heartier and longer than usual, and suffer the blissful consequences.
But nine months from now, on Sept. 30, these same Torontonians are going to be asked -- heck, encouraged -- to stay up late -- really, really late -- and the people doing the exhorting are none other than the municipal officials of Toronto. Fortunately, Sept. 30 is a Saturday -- and at 7 p.m. that day, the city's first Nuit Blanche (that's French for "white night,") gets started and runs through until sunrise, roughly 7 a.m., on Sunday.
The idea for Nuit Blanche originated in 2000 in Paris (where else?), as a sort of hello to the 21st century. Organized by the civic government, it marked its fourth anniversary last Sept. 30 with a 12-hour free festival that saw the Louvre stay open, admission-free, until midnight, and the Pompidou Centre until 7 a.m. In the meantime, among other events, a Brazilian musical festival raged from dusk to dawn at Les Halles while bistros, movie houses and theatres stayed open late. An estimated one million people joined in the fun, some of them using the free bicycles -- there were 2,000 in total -- provided by the mayor's office to travel from venue to venue.
Since its inauguration, the Nuit Blanche idea has been picked up by Rome, Brussels, Istanbul and, to a lesser extent, Montreal.
Toronto's premiere edition is being orchestrated by the city's culture division as part of the big "TO Live with Culture" promotion, to which $6-million has been allocated for 2006 ($5.5-million from the city, $500,000 from the federal government's "cultural capitals" program). Details are still being worked out, reports city culture project manager Gregory Nixon, but the central hook for Nuit Blanche Toronto is going to be an epic art gallery crawl based in three major cultural zones: Queen Street West, west of Bathurst, the Royal Ontario Museum/Gardiner Museum-Yorkville axis, and the Art Gallery of Ontario-Ontario College of Art and Design district.
Public and private cultural institutions in these zones will let revellers wander in and out of their spaces free of charge until dawn. Many are planning to mount Nuit Blanche-specific exhibitions, installations and performance pieces.
"Basically, we're looking for maximum buy-in from any cultural institution that wants to participate," Mr. Nixon says.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Paris event includes a heavy shopping element, as posh stores there have discovered that revellers like to mix couture with culture.
According to Mr. Nixon, the retail component in Paris "happened on its own, as a kind of organic phenomenon," without the official imprimatur of Nuit Blanche organizers.
Mr. Nixon says he wouldn't be surprised if, say, the merchants of Yorkville decide to entertain extended hours on Sept. 30 to lure some of the crowds visiting the area's many private galleries or the nearby ROM. "We don't have any objection to that," he says. In fact, the city is going to be encouraging bars and restaurants in the three zones "to stay open until 4 a.m. and keep the whole thing rocking."
Mr. Nixon predicts Nuit Blanche Mach 1 "is going to be huge." Not as huge as the Paris party, mind you, or the one in Rome, which since its start in September, 2003, has lured 1.5 million revellers, but big enough to contribute some of the 500,000 new visitors and $120-million in economic activity that the city wants to see from its "Live with Culture" campaign.
"The difficult thing will be getting people over the threshold the first time," Mr. Nixon says, "getting them to commit to this new thing that's a little experimental, a little offbeat."
But he's convinced it's going to succeed and become as popular, in its fashion, as Doors Open, the city's weekend-long celebration of its architectural heritage.
******
I'm excited about this event!
Louroz