Split SOS into multiple weekends?

[ron_newman]

I'm sure I'm not the only person who felt totally overwhelmed by this weekend's Somerville Open Studios, with over 340 artists at more than 100 separate locations. I made the following suggestion to several of the artists whom I visited, and they seemed sympathetic:

Draw an arbitrary line through the city. Everyone west of the line exhibits on SOS weekend #1. Everyone east of it exhibits on the following weekend. Or maybe even split the city (and the event) up into three successive weekends.

What do you all think?

Comments

[ron_newman]

The map booklet was already 16 pages long, including advertising which I hope was enough to pay for them.

The lookup lists were available on the web site, but I'm not sure most people knew this. (And of course, not everyone uses the Internet.)

[julishka.livejournal.com]

yeah, but when you're out walking, and you find out people have moved you're not going to waste time running back home to look it up on the internet.

i understand the booklet was huge, but it really would have helped out a lot. maybe it would have changed the layout of the guide completely, i don't know, but it's frustrating when you realise that your favorites have gone & they've not updated the people who signed up on the previous year's mailing list. (or that maybe you've forgotten which building they're in & are having difficulty searching every single page...)

(maybe i was just burnt out & found the booklet temporarily overwhelming, but there were a few things i would have done differently to make that easier to read.)

[ron_newman]

Agreed. In another day or two, I'm going to e-mail the SOS and Somerville Arts Council folks a pointer to this discussion.