Y'all getting ready? I've seen of the international artists around downtown lately and some of the new murals being done this year are amazing. I think they are going to soon run out of building side walls to paint murals on though lol.

 

With that said, I'm super hyped. So much going on this weekend with Blink. What are your guys plans?

My wife and I have a wedding reception in downtown Covington so I am a little nervous about how we are going to get down there but I think we may leave early and walk around, or we may just go on Friday night and take our time walking in certain parts to check it out!

Excited here. I'm thrilled about this event and I look forward to seeing it grow into something even bigger... more side shows, unsolicited events, panels, conferences, etc. I feel like they haven't been playing up the music enough. The Pomegranates are getting back together for Blink!

Going to try and go all four nights unless the kids rise up and stage a mutiny. My ex had them on vacation two years ago so they have never experienced it. I bet they are going to be blown away. We walk downtown fairly often and they cant quite grasp the size of it and the crowds I experienced when i talk it up, as we are usually walking on fairly empty streets. If you see a bald guy with a gaggle of kids and a big black Great Dane say hi (just dont make any "is that a horse"or "get that guy a saddle" jokes or my 13yr old will seriously roll her eyes at you).

 

...or we could always do an impromptu forum meet before BLINK starts.  Just sayin'...

Im curious how filled the streets will be this time around. Last time downtown Cincy looked like Manhattan. Soooooant people I was in utter who and awe. Never saw so many pedestrians downtown in my lifetime like i did that night. 

 

6 minutes ago, troeros said:

Soooooant people I was in utter who and awe.

 

Please?

Edited October 9, 20195 yr by Robuu

Aside from the festival itself, it will be really cool to see the Riverfront Transit Center being used as our main downtown bus hub for 3 nights. They have essentially recreated Government Square down there — so if you ride a bus that normally stops at Government Square Area B, it will stop at RTC Area B during Blink.

 

 

Utilizing the riverfront transit center, free streetcar rides, free concerts around town, artwork extending nearly 3 miles from Findlay Market to Duveneck Square and a million people walking around downtown; it's going to be a great weekend in Cincy.

I am skeptical of the crowd estimates.  1 million people would mean 500,000 per night, or fully 1 in 4 people in the metro area.  I wouldn't doubt that out of our metro area of 2 million, at least 250,000 are elderly or otherwise physically unable to go downtown.  Or they're blind or seriously visually impaired.  

 

So people are really going to drive in -- hundreds of thousands of them -- from Columbus, Indiana, Lexington and points south?   

 

 

The logic behind that is they 'estimated' that 1 million people attended in 2017 and that there will be an increase in local attendance over last year.  They have allegedly been advertising this outside of the metro area, so they may be expecting 300k+ to come from outside the area.  I'm guessing the figures also mean that someone that attends all 4 nights from out of town gets counted 4 times.  Same for locals if they go, say, twice.  I bet they hit 1.5M (if there is an actual way to estimate it).

13 minutes ago, 10albersa said:

  I bet they hit 1.5M (if there is an actual way to estimate it).

 

That's preposterous.  That's 750,000 people in the basin at once, or approximately 300,000 toilet flushes per hour.  

^ It's 4 nights long. Granted, Friday and Saturday are likely to be the biggest draws. But the parade should ensure tonight has a bump in attendance over what it would be, and parade attendees are likely to decide they want to see more and come back another day (it's going to be impossible to see everything in one night, let alone a weeknight with a chunk of the time spent watching the parade). I would guess Sunday attendance is pretty light, but if you spread 1.5m over 4 nights that's 375k per night.

The low is 35 degrees Saturday night which might trim the crowd down a bit, seeing as how that'll be a good 10 degrees cooler than anything else we've experienced so far this fall.

 

I also assume they will do the official estimates by tallying up the crowd on each night and adding it together. I'll probably walk around  a bit on 3 or possibly all 4 nights, so I'll get counted 3 or 4 times.

hell, I timed coming home to visit family to coincide with this event, so count 2 coming from Delhi, India. Also, my friend who lives in Denver came to town to see it. 
 

It has a draw. 

I'm coming down from Cleveland and am VERY excited! I have heard and seen incredible things about this event, and I can't wait to get to experience it for myself.

On 10/9/2019 at 1:24 PM, ColDayMan said:

...or we could always do an impromptu forum meet before BLINK starts.  Just sayin'...

 

2 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

So people are really going to drive in -- hundreds of thousands of them -- from Columbus, Indiana, Lexington and points south? 

 

Just did a quick search for hotel availability on Saturday night.

 

All of the Marriott hotels in the CBD (Westin, Renaissance, Residence Inn, AC) are sold out of regular rooms and only have suites available (starting at $379/night). Marriott RiverCenter in Covington is also sold out of regular rooms and has suites available starting at $307/night.

 

Looking at Hilton, Hampton Inn (Downtown) and Embassy Suites (Covington) are fully booked. The Cincinnatian, Hilton Netherland Plaza, and Homewood Suites still have rooms/suites available at $259/night and up.

 

The Millennium still has 2 rooms available at $154. ?

 

Basically, all of the affordable hotels downtown are booked up and it's only the premium rooms and suites that are still available. I don't know how this compares to a typical Saturday night in Cincinnati, but it seems like a sign that a lot of people are coming into town for Blink.

On 10/9/2019 at 1:24 PM, ColDayMan said:

...or we could always do an impromptu forum meet before BLINK starts.  Just sayin'...

I would coordinate this but I am in the parade this year and hosting people from out of town over the weekend.

 

I did register for Doors Open and will try to attend.

 

Maybe have a UO meetup at one of those venues and a walk-a-bout around on Saturday?

 

Also my wife's team has an installation at the Smale Labyrinth called Upside Wobbles:

 

https://www.blinkcincinnati.com/portfolio/upside-wobbles/

 

Check it out whenever the website is back online... or in person.

Who are blink sponsors? Curious if the likes of kroger/p&g could help elevate this to an event that is heavily marketed towards areas outside of the metro area (like TN, IND, KY). I feel like anywhere within a 6 hour drive is fair game.

5 minutes ago, troeros said:

Who are blink sponsors? Curious if the likes of kroger/p&g could help elevate this to an event that is heavily marketed towards areas outside of the metro area (like TN, IND, KY). I feel like anywhere within a 6 hour drive is fair game.

https://www.blinkcincinnati.com/sponsors/

 

When the BLINK website is back online you will have your answers.

 

EDIT: Of course P&G and Kroger are involved. I know P&G is sponsoring some of the installations and I bet Kroger has too.

6 minutes ago, JYP said:

https://www.blinkcincinnati.com/sponsors/

 

When the BLINK website is back online you will have your answers.

 

EDIT: Of course P&G and Kroger are involved. I know P&G is sponsoring some of the installations and I bet Kroger has too.

 

Ah okay thanks!

 

I'm just curious that if Blink has the potential to grow what it becomes a national event that becomes a serious draw from tourists across America. Or do you think blink is always destined to be a medium sized regional powerhouse type of event?

Depends on how you define "national event." The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is an annual event that attracts around 800,000 to 900,000 visitors each year from across the country and around the world, especially photographers who want to capture this very unique event. I happened to be passing through Albuquerque during the event last year and I can tell you it was nearly impossible to find a hotel room anywhere close to the urban core on those dates. By any measure it's a massive event, but has the average American heard of it? No.

 

And yet, if the 1 million visitors estimate is accurate, Blink is already more popular than the Balloon Fiesta.

2 hours ago, Ram23 said:

I'll probably walk around  a bit on 3 or possibly all 4 nights, so I'll get counted 3 or 4 times.

 

Who or what is doing the counting?  The promoters have every incentive to exaggerate how many people show up.  Is somebody who lives downtown who is driving home from work a "visitor"?  What about third shift workers?  

 

 

The number will totally be skewed by those third shift workers downtown. Dozens of people will be inappropriately counted towards the total.

 

There are probably under 15k people who live in the impacted Blink area. It'll be ok. 

Some publicity in the NY Daily News:

 

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-blink-rainbow-bridge-cincinnati-lgbtq-diversity-20191009-hew2n2clyfdwrgraszajk6o6by-story.html

Stuff like this is supposed to have the Port-A-John people estimate attendance.

14 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

The number will totally be skewed by those third shift workers downtown. Dozens of people will be inappropriately counted towards the total.

 

There are probably under 15k people who live in the impacted Blink area. It'll be ok. 

 

There is only 15k residents between Covington, The Banks, CBD, and OTR/Pendelton/Findley Market...that seems a bit low, no?

4 minutes ago, troeros said:

 

There is only 15k residents between Covington, The Banks, CBD, and OTR/Pendelton/Findley Market...that seems a bit low, no?

Blink doesn't cover all of those neighborhoods. It's portions of every neighborhood. Southwest Downtown is excluded. NE OTR is excluded. Downtown East of Sycamore isn't included. Covington is mainly around Braxton and the Roebling (lots of office). In the 2010 Census there were only 4850 people Downtown and 6064 people in OTR. That's not even 11k people and it includes all of both neighborhoods. It doesn't discount the areas that aren't in the Blink footprint.

3 minutes ago, troeros said:

 

There is only 15k residents between Covington, The Banks, CBD, and OTR/Pendelton/Findley Market...that seems a bit low, no?

 

It's not taking place in the entirety of those places though. There are a total of 13,697 residents in the affected Census Tracts. The actual area is even smaller than that, since the Covington area, for example, is much smaller than the Census Tract in which it is located.

I don't know how accurate the numbers are, though it's very on brand for jake to belittle them, but last Blink was by far the most crowded I've ever seen downtown.  It was easily double or triple the size of Oktoberfest or Taste, and that's being conservative.  I expect this years to be even bigger then the last one.  

Let's criticize Trump's crowd estimates but not Blink's.  

 

I just received this dispatch from my mom, who is at Ground Zero:

 

 

 

Just got home and it was as densely crowded as octoberfest, but for miles not just a few blocks.

 

My only complaint is that the Roebling is closed to traffic but they aren’t letting people walk down the middle and the sidewalks on either side were packed. It took ne a solid twenty minutes to cross the river.

Just got back as well. I'm fairly certain it beat Thursdays crowd 2 years ago. Insane. I love Blink because it truly gives you a glimpse of how the hell cincinnati would look like if we're as dense as Chicago/Manhattan/any big city...I'm not sure how many decades we are from achieving that, but it's such a cool feeling to see cincinnati be a big city for 4 days. 

Edited October 11, 20195 yr by troeros

I saw some tweets claiming that the streets that were supposed to be closed for cars were not actually closed. Is that true? (Currently out of town so I couldn’t see Blink for myself tonight.)

28 minutes ago, taestell said:

I saw some tweets claiming that the streets that were supposed to be closed for cars were not actually closed. Is that true? (Currently out of town so I couldn’t see Blink for myself tonight.)

 

I'm not sure. I did notice traffic was nuts probably worse than 2 years ago. Total standstill. People everywhere, cars everywhere. The police guards directing traffic were having a hard time keeping up with the level of traffic and pedestrian traffic crossing the street...again picture times square on a Saturday night and it will give you a glimpse in terms of how big these crowds were. 

 

Cincinnati is just not equipped to handle this level of pedestrian/vehicular density unfortunately.

 

Again this was just Thursday. The busiest days will easily be Friday and Saturday....future blink events sould ban any vehicular traffic and have Uber/Lyft drop off/pick up zones at the casino parking lot or the West end. The amount of cars vs people walking is just not working and is just causing so much mayhem downtown. 

 

Well that explains it, apparently most of the road closures don’t start until tonight.

 

 

11 hours ago, ucgrady said:

My only complaint is that the Roebling is closed to traffic but they aren’t letting people walk down the middle and the sidewalks on either side were packed. It took ne a solid twenty minutes to cross the river.

 

I'm going to guess it's a safety issue. I don't think the Roebling can safely handle the entire bridge filled with people. That's a lot more than a single large truck.

There just wasn't a clear policy, a hoard would walk down the middle, then a cop would tell them to get off, then a group would climb from the sidewalk to the middle and the cop would say nothing and let them walk the rest of the way. It just needs to be more clearly blocked off if that is the intention because it was chaos last night and people were stepping through the structure to avoid stopped crowds. 

 

Outside of toddlers shoes going through the grates and people's cell phones being dropped, it doesn't seem like too much of a safety issue but maybe your right that it has more to do with weight load than anything else. The music playing on the bridge was bumping so hopefully everyone was doesn't bounce to the beat in unison or it could turn into the Tacoma Narrows.

Edited October 11, 20195 yr by ucgrady

10 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

Outside of toddlers shoes going through the grates and people's cell phones being dropped, it doesn't seem like too much of a safety issue but maybe your right that it has more to do with weight load than anything else. The music playing on the bridge was bumping so hopefully everyone was doesn't bounce to the beat in unison or it could turn into the Tacoma Narrows.

 

The bridge was damaged by pedestrians leaving a Bengals game back in the 80s.  

There was a live stream by wlwt and I laughed my ass off when some of the comments were of people saying, "Who cares! Cincinnati is infested with drugs and crime. No thanks!"

 

It was almost like they were mad at other people for having fun downtown and not living up to their imagined world of Cincinnati being a place that you would get instantly shot the minute you stepped foot downtown lol. 

 

I feel bad for some people. So scarred by their parents and media. 

Edited October 11, 20195 yr by troeros

50 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

There just wasn't a clear policy, a hoard would walk down the middle, then a cop would tell them to get off, then a group would climb from the sidewalk to the middle and the cop would say nothing and let them walk the rest of the way. It just needs to be more clearly blocked off if that is the intention because it was chaos last night and people were stepping through the structure to avoid stopped crowds. 

 

Outside of toddlers shoes going through the grates and people's cell phones being dropped, it doesn't seem like too much of a safety issue but maybe your right that it has more to do with weight load than anything else. The music playing on the bridge was bumping so hopefully everyone was doesn't bounce to the beat in unison or it could turn into the Tacoma Narrows.

 

Who wants to hear some Kriss Kross? We're going to follow that up with some House of Pain!

Edited October 11, 20195 yr by GCrites80s

20 minutes ago, troeros said:

There was a live stream by wlwt and I laughed my ass off when some of the comments were of people saying, "Who cares! Cincinnati is infested with drugs and crime. No thanks!"

 

It was almost like they were mad at other people for having fun downtown and not living up to their imagined world of Cincinnati being a place that you would get instantly shot the minute you stepped foot downtown lol. 

 

I feel bad for some people. So scarred by their parents and media. 

 

There are a lot of people out in the 'burbs that are stuck in 1993.

54 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

Outside of toddlers shoes going through the grates and people's cell phones being dropped, 

 

If you are interested in feeling dizzy, look straight down while biking across the grated deck.  

Traffic way was worse than it needed to be due to what appears to be poor planning. The Taylor-Southgate bridge was closed for sometime for a 8:30 fireworks show; Light The Night event at Yeatman's Cove. Not sure why they couldn't have launched the fireworks from Newport vs. the bridge.

If anyone wants to contribute general photos of Blink this year without creating their own topic, head over to this other thread in the City Photos section. If you want to do a big dump of your own photos you're welcome to create your own topic in the Ohio Photos section as well.

 

This will keep this topic about how the event is going and general impressions of it.

If they were to do this again in two years with Covington being involved. The little ferry boat that is used before and after reds and bengals games should be considered to assist people getting across the bridge, or just let people walk down the vehicular portion. 

 

Move it to Blue Ash.  

This is awesome

 

https://www.wlwt.com/article/blink-lights-up-cincinnati-here-are-some-must-see-attractions-along-the-riverfront/29432570

 

Random laser dance party in an alley way for Blink. Stuff like this is what makes blink, arts community and this city as a whole so damn special. 

 

I think even 10 years ago and how Cincy didn't even have half the stuff going on today. The future for the next generation of cincinnati kids are going to be night and day compared to the previous generation of kids.