Second Sunday on Main (SSOM) is arguably Cincinnati’s oldest open streets event. Organizers kicked off its ninth season earlier this month and welcomed scores of visitors out into the middle of Main Street through the heart of Over-the-Rhine.
The free event is organized by the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce and is held once per month from June through October. The first event of the 2014 season included food trucks and street food, live music and art performances, a dog competition, celebrity chef series, local arts and crafts vendors, beer and great weather.
June’s SSOM event included a record number of participating vendors, with organizers citing more than 100 took part in the event. The attendance was also estimated to be higher than average with approximately 2,000 visitors.
As with past years, each of this year’s events will include a distinct theme. For June organizers appropriately played on the idea of it being a neighborhood block party. In July, however, Second Sunday on Main will take on a more colorful feel as it will celebrate Pride on Main Street.
ArtsWave finalized their list of grants to arts organizations throughout the region last Friday. This year’s distribution doles out $10.4 million to 35 different local arts organizations, ranging from $12,500 for the Contemporary Dance Theater to $3,020,000 for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to what ArtsWave calls their impact grants, they also distributed $435,000 for small project grants and strategic local partnerships.
The money comes from a fund that ArtsWave officials say is the largest of its kind in the United States, distributing more than $50 million to regional arts organizations over the past five years.
“ArtsWave’s grants are a differentiator for Greater Cincinnati,” Mary McCullough-Hudson, ArtsWave’s outgoing CEO, stated in a prepared release. “It is absolutely unique for a region this size to have an annual infusion of more than $10 million in its arts sector each year, creating both a stabilizing and a catalyzing effect for organizations and arts-related activity that have unexpected benefits for the community.”
Cincinnati Shakespeare Company [Provided]
ArtsWave 2014 Fundraiser Announcement [Provided]
Asian Culture Fest [Provided]
The organizations and projects that were awarded money, officials say, were selected based on the input of grant making committees that evaluate submissions and determine the amount of money to be awarded to each applicant.
The average grant amount awarded this year was approximately $250,000. The Cincinnati Art Museum ($1,635,000), Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra ($3,020,000) and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park ($1,210,000) were the only organizations to receive grants in excess of $1 million. When removing those outliers from the equation, the average drops to about $110,000.
Other large recipients include the Cincinnati Opera ($935,000), Cincinnati Ballet ($850,000) and Contemporary Arts Center ($405,000).
The money for these grants comes from an annual fundraising effort, which yielded a record amount last year of more than $12 million. In addition to supporting the numerous organizations and projects, the money also goes to support shared service operations arts organizations throughout the region, like board training, volunteer programs and fundraising expenses.
“Our region’s residents support this campaign because they see every day how the arts bring people together,” said Karen Bowman, Chair, ArtsWave Board of Trustees and Principal, Deloitte Consulting.
In addition to these grants, ArtsWave officials also announced that they would be awarding $45,000 to designated community revitalization organizations in Price Hill, Madisonville, Covington, Avondale and Walnut Hills as part of LISC-Cincinnati’s Place Matters campaign. Those funds, they say, will be used to support community-building arts programs in those neighborhoods.
“Successful creative placemaking is about the impact of local arts on people in these neighborhoods,” explained Kathy Schwab, Executive Director, LISC of Greater Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky. “This exciting partnership with ArtsWave will help fuel community engagement and pride in the five Place Matters communities.”
We are pretty regularly contacted by readers who would like to submit a guest editorial or share their thoughts on something we have recently published, but it is not all that often that we are contacted by someone like Mayeul Akpovi.
Mayeul sent us a message on Facebook pointing us to his latest video, which is a blend of time lapse and hyperlapse photography techniques, of Lyon. The nearly three-minute video of France’s third largest city is, quite simply, stunning.
The Paris-based web developer describes photography as merely a passion of his, and says that he produced the video from some 8,000 pictures he took over the course of a five-day trip to Lyon earlier this month.
Who wants to chip in and buy Mayeul Akpovi a plane ticket to Cincinnati so he can work his magic in the Queen City? Or are there any local photographers out there willing to step up and see if they can hold a candle to his work? Feel free to ping us at editors@urbancincy.com if you do.
The weather is warming up which makes it a great time to enjoy fine Belgian beers outside at this Thurday’s URBANexchange event (weather permitting)! We are returning to Taste of Begium’s Short Vine location.
Come down for some waffles and chicken or some Belgian beers this Thursday from 5:30pm to 8:00pm. This is a great opportunity to check out the progress of the new streetscape being installed on Short Vine in Uptown and to check out the new apartments going up along Correy Street.
As always, the event will be a casual setting where you can meet others interested in what is happening in the city. We will gather in a space near the bar so that each person can choose how much or little they buy in terms of food or drink. Although we do encourage our attendees to generously support our kind hosts at Taste of Belgium.
As always URBANexchange is free and open to the public. This Thursday kicks off World Cup Soccer so Taste of Belgium will have special happy hour prices.
Additionally, Jocelyn and I have recently returned from attending the 22nd annual Congress for the New Urbanism in Buffalo where Cincinnati won a major award and have some great ideas and experiences to share.
We will be situated near the kitchen bar on the north end of the restaurant but you can also ask the host where the UrbanCincy group is located and they will be happy to assist.
Taste of Belgium is located on Vine Street in Correville between the University of Cincinnati’s east and west campuses and is located just two blocks from a future uptown streetcar stop. If you choose to bike there is free and ample bike parking is available outside the building. The venue is also served by Metro’s Metro+ bus , as well as routes #19, #78 and #46 buses.
After an eclectic parade on Monday and a kick-off party last night, the 11th annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival officially gets started today with its first round of performances.
The 12-day event has become a national draw over the years, and organizers expect more than 8,000 people to attend this year’s festival. As expected, the 2014 rendition will boast an impressive collection of 38 unique productions and more than 160 performances at a dozen venues tightly clustered in Over-the-Rhine.
“This year’s festival is one of the biggest ever,” said Eric Vosmeier, Producing Artistic Director at the Know Theatre. “We had a record number of FringeNext applications, our high school artist version of the Fringe, and subsequently added an additional slot to FringeNext because the applications were so strong.”
Cincinnati Fringe Festival [Provided]
Cincinnati Fringe Parade [Provided]
Know Theatre [Randy Simes]
Vosmeier also said that he is excited about the three international acts, two from the United Kingdom and one from Israel, at this year’s festival.
The growth and increasing popularity of the Fringe Festival has seemingly mirrored that of the neighborhood is has called home. That trend, however, is now also posing some problems as available, low-cost venue locations are harder to come by.
“We’re thrilled that the neighborhood has reached a critical mass of stable and thriving businesses, but the challenge this poses to our festival is real,” Vosmeier explained. “There was a time when empty storefronts were always available. There was a time when neighborhood landlords shared space at low or no cost – I remember a couple of years when my venue rental costs were $0.”
Vosmeier says that venue costs for this year’s festival were closer to $8,000, and says that organizers are looking to do everything in their power to keep the nearly two-week event in this area of Over-the-Rhine for the foreseeable future, but also realize the challenges they faced this year will probably not be going away.
Fortunately, he says, long-time supporters like Coffee Emporium, Art Academy of Cincinnati and Urban Sites continue to come through with a number of guaranteed venues each year.
The hard work put in by volunteers and Know Theatre employees is something that has helped make the festival a favorite for participating artists who are treated to the country’s smallest application fee, free housing, no participation fees and the opportunity to learn from other artists during the festival’s workshop and development series.
“We have tried to create the most artist-friendly festival possible,” said Vosmeier. “We have ample, but not the biggest box office payouts, but because we make it nearly free of costs for artists to play with us, they see the value in coming to Cincinnati’s Fringe.”
Such treatment has not only benefitted the artists, but also the festival itself. According to organizers, rolling out the welcome mat in such a way has helped foster an “extremely loyal” set of artists that are always looking to participate in Cincinnati’s annual Fringe event. Those loyal artists then, in turn, become ambassadors to other artists, of which 90% are referred by past artists.
Vosmeier also says that the return of these artists year after year better positions the city when those individuals consider relocation.
“I am currently talking with three individual artists who are seriously contemplating a move to Cincinnati, and it’s all due to their experiences stemming from the Cincinnati Fringe Festival,” Vosmeier emphasized. “Artists can be fickle and to have helped create a festival that makes an artist think ‘I might like to move to Cincinnati’ makes us feel like we’ve accomplished something pretty extraordinary.”
After organizing the festival for many years, however, Vosmeier has said that he will step down from his leadership role at the Know Theatre after the last performance concludes next Saturday.
“Working on this festival has truly been one of the privileges of my career. I love virtually everything about it,” Vosmeier told UrbanCincy. “We certainly have challenges each year. But in the end, this event fills us with so much joy and appreciation for our city, these amazing artists, and our audiences that it’s hard to focus on anything but the unique pop-up community that we create for twelve ridiculously invigorating days.”
