I am curious what others thought of Blink this year. I have attended each year since Luminosity, but for some reason this year felt flat or phoned into me. Many of the projections didn't seem as polished as they were in the past and definitely overheard a lot of people say, "it looks like a desktop screensaver". There were a couple of interesting pieces but i definitely think years prior were much better...

1 minute ago, savadams13 said:

I am curious what others thought of Blink this year. I have attended each year since Luminosity, but for some reason this year felt flat or phoned into me. Many of the projections didn't seem as polished as they were in the past and definitely overheard a lot of people say, "it looks like a desktop screensaver". There were a couple of interesting pieces but i definitely think years prior were much better...

 

I agree 100%.  I didn't attend two years ago but did four years ago.  That year was awesome and would be hard to top. 

at the end of the day I think there's only so much you can really do with a projector pointed at a wall. The one piece that really did a good job IMO was the toy mural projection. The way the artist was able to convey light sources making shadows and stuff was just unbelievable.

 

I'm a big fan of the pieces that aren't just murals and projectors. There was someone near the toy mural with a small drum set and an electronic touchpad that interacted with the projection behind him. You could see him move his finger across the touchpad and having it interact with the projection.

 

I also enjoyed the violin player in Covington who looped his instrument and played over it, while having the music synced to spider leg-like lights. 

 

In addition, I liked the skatepark that was setup on Liberty, the Asianati night market, and the whirlygig machine at The Banks that projected images on spinning lights. People were just lying down in the grass looking up at the light show, and I think it was a great collective experience.

I love the event and enjoy all the projections that are architecturally unique and utilize the building to it's fullest, like Music Hall, Southgate/Thompson House, Memorial Hall a couple years ago etc. The projections on boring facades or over most murals aren't that interesting (3D murals like Cincinnatus and Kenner were cool). Plain lights on a mural are also not interesting. Most of the installations feel cheep or too small, like the doors at fountain square or the lights on paint cans or hub caps or a circle of LED lights on the ground. 

 

I think the amount of people downtown is amazing, people form other cities noticing and appreciating our architecture is priceless and every year there are at least a handful of great art pieces that make it worthwhile. 

Oh, and this piece was awesome. Just playing 90s rap while old washing machines with car rims inside spun in changing lights. 

I think this 

28 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

Most of the installations feel cheep or too small

 

I want to push back a little bit on this take. I think another way of framing it is that A LOT of different types of artists were able to be billed as being a part of Blink, and that should be seen as a huge success for the event. Expanding local participation, and participation to artists that aren't going to Burning Man every year is a win in my eyes. 

You're probably right, and having the cumulative effect of more art pieces is much better than just focusing the money to fewer and larger installations. I have a friend who did one of the installations and another who made a mural so I don't want to demean the effort and how cool some of them were, but it's hard to compete with a multi-thousand dollar display on a beautiful Samuel Hannaford building with a borderline DIY installation that is given equal billing on the map. 

My son is at UC and saw it, for the first time. He thought it was “absolutely stunning”. 

For a weekend, the Kroger building looked like the Wynn. And it needs to stay.

I wasn't able to attend but all of my coworkers have said this year's BLINK was better than the last one and that it was pretty good overall. I'm bummed that I missed it.

 

It was my first time going to one and I thought it was awesome (nothing to compare to previous versions though).  The crowds, the food, the displays were all great.  I sure wouldn't have wanted to been in a streetcar though, every single one was packed full with people smashed up against the windows.

 

21 minutes ago, The_Cincinnati_Kid said:

It was my first time going to one and I thought it was awesome (nothing to compare to previous versions though).  The crowds, the food, the displays were all great.  I sure wouldn't have wanted to been in a streetcar though, every single one was packed full with people smashed up against the windows.

 

 

Yeah the streetcar was way too full most of the time, though the police escorts did speed it up pretty good. Sunday at like 8pm it was busy, but not crushingly full, and is the only time I took it (from Findlay Market to Court Street).

 

The RTC diversion for buses worked pretty good. I took it to the Banks one night, and took it home two nights. 

1 hour ago, taestell said:

For a weekend, the Kroger building looked like the Wynn. And it needs to stay.

 

We said the same thing! It was also really cool seeing the Kroger light show from the Court Street market with all of its lights, vendors, smoke, and people. Why the hell Court St. isn't activated in that way every weekend from 7 - 11 PM is beyond me. It's a total dead zone and would be a great bridge between downtown and OTR if it had something going on (especially good, quick food sold from places that are actually open). 

 

1 hour ago, JaceTheAce41 said:

I wasn't able to attend but all of my coworkers have said this year's BLINK was better than the last one and that it was pretty good overall. I'm bummed that I missed it.

 

I've been to multiple nights of each one and can honestly say that I believe 2024 was the best one yet. All the problems of last year—not enough vendors, restrooms, etc seemed solved (you couldn't go anywhere without at least finding a portalet or food truck) and some of the installations were just... wow. I think locals are also figuring out how it works now and planning accordingly. There seemed to be some choke points of crowds, but overall things seemed to move relatively well. While I've always enjoyed BLINK, I tend to be super cynical, and this year I have nothing bad to say. It was really good. 

 

25 minutes ago, The_Cincinnati_Kid said:

 I sure wouldn't have wanted to been in a streetcar though, every single one was packed full with people smashed up against the windows.

 

I'm not sure how many they had running and the cops kept them moving really well, but yeah—I'm not sure how you even board one of those or how awkward it must be when it pulls up to a station and no one's getting off but 100 people want on. @ryanlammi and I were chatting about this the other night—I'm a bit surprised that the city 1) Still runs the streetcar during Blink and 2) It isn't geared more toward prioritizing those with accessibility requirements. 

 

All in all it's a "good" problem to have, just wild how it can barely keep up with the demand. 

 

Also, does anyone know: I heard that Metro was also offering shuttles in and out of the RTC up to OTR and vice versa. Is that true? Great idea if so. 

48 minutes ago, Gordon Bombay said:

Why the hell Court St. isn't activated in that way every weekend from 7 - 11 PM is beyond me. It's a total dead zone and would be a great bridge between downtown and OTR if it had something going on (especially good, quick food sold from places that are actually open). 

 

At this point I think the Asianati Night Market should become a regular monthly event on Court Street. With as popular as Asian Food Fest and the Night Market pop-ups during other events are, I think it's clear that there is demand for this sort of thing more than a few times per year.

 

48 minutes ago, Gordon Bombay said:

I'm not sure how many they had running and the cops kept them moving really well, but yeah—I'm not sure how you even board one of those or how awkward it must be when it pulls up to a station and no one's getting off but 100 people want on. @ryanlammi and I were chatting about this the other night—I'm a bit surprised that the city 1) Still runs the streetcar during Blink and 2) It isn't geared more toward prioritizing those with accessibility requirements. 

 

I believe the city said they were running 4 streetcars throughout the event. Having the streetcars jam-packed all night is a tricky problem to solve. I wish that more people without mobility issues would choose to walk during Blink so that space could be left for people that really needed to use it. Maybe during Blink they should have certain designated stops where they require everyone to exit the vehicle — people could still exit and get right back on, but some percentage would stick around for awhile and explore that area, helping spread out the load a little bit and allowing new passengers to board. Or we could piggy back on another city's LRV order and get a sixth streetcar.

On 10/17/2024 at 9:56 AM, ucgrady said:

I've been looking over the map to see what I need to check out and I really feel like it's spread too thin again. There is a pretty big dead zone between downtown and Smale, and then another large gap going over to Lytle Park. Covington is cool, but it goes down to 7th street which is nearly 3 miles away from Findlay market area. Newport isn't connected to the Cincy side because of the gap between Lytle and the river, no installations on Sawyer Point or along the Purple People Bridge for example.

 

On the one hand, it does feel a little bit too spread out, because if you are trying to see everything, there is a lot of walking and dead zones in between the installations. But it also didn't really seem to matter to most of the people there who were there. For most attendees I think it was more about the atmosphere of being downtown after dark, walking down the middle of streets that are closed to cars, seeing all the bars and restaurants staying open late and doing tons of business, seeing the street vendors selling food and souvenirs, and momentarily experiencing what it would be like on a normal weekend if Cincinnati's population was 4× larger. I do think they should work to fill in some of the gaps next time, though, because Blink is going to lose momentum if it just turns into a "vibes" festival and the focus on visual arts becomes secondary.

3 hours ago, ucgrady said:

 it's hard to compete

Good thing it's not a competition, haha.

Blink's visitor survey is now active if you'd like to provide your feedback to the event organizers.

Make lightshows similar to Kroger building one more permanent.

A Bright Future

Blink cements itself as Cincinnati’s most dazzling event in 2024

 

Newport Mayor Tom Guidugli had a short walk across the Purple People Bridge to see the parade that kicked off the four-day Blink festival of art and light Oct. 17. Hundreds marched along Mehring Way, riding bicycles festooned with LEDs, wearing glowing capes, holding aloft lighted dragonflies and balloons.

 

His return route brought him across the Taylor Southgate Bridge, where to the left of the roundabout that funnels cars into and out of Newport was a building-spanning mural of a nurse painted in the style of a comic book superhero to commemorate frontline health care workers amid Covid-19. Originally created, but never lit, for Blink in 2022, the larger-than-life nurse was animated with light as the entree into more than 16 exhibitions, as the gigantic event entered Newport for the first time.

 

“(Blink) is placemaking at its finest,” Guidugli said of the festival touching down in his city. “It’s a reintroduction to the community and places you’ve not been for a while, or even places you’re familiar with seen in a new way.”

 

Blink has become far and away Cincinnati’s largest public event, drawing crowds in excess of 2 million people, with direct economic impact surpassing $100 million. As it continues to grow, despite being geographically constrained as a pedestrian event in a dense, urban setting, its leaders are looking at how it can expand in 2026, securing its long-term future as a sustainable biennial event, and what might happen in the intervening years between each light show.

 

“We feel absolutely energized by what we saw over the last four days in this community,” said Brendon Cull, CEO of the Cincinnati Regional Chamber, one of the producers of Blink. “Could this be a world-renowned sort of festival? Absolutely. In many ways it already is.”

 

Early results point to a hit. Metro said Blink ridership jumped up 20% from 2022. While final tallies for visitors and economic impact won’t arrive for some weeks, organizers believe it could be the biggest yet, and are already thinking about what comes next for the smash event.

 

Way more below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2024/10/24/blink-2024-impact-city-chamber-artswave-cost.html