BOTC was rather underwhelmed by the Ingenuity Festival last night. We were rather disappointed in several things that may improve over the next few days. Here is a list:
1. Way-finding: A visitor has no idea where and where-not he can tread, especially in the IdeaCenter and the Playhouse Square venues. Exhibition venues are not clearly delineated along the street scape, or even on the doors and entrances to buildings.
2. Un-informed docents: Many the of the docents at the various exhibits had no real idea what the exhibits were about, what they meant, or what they were trying to say. The docents at the IdeaCenter really did not know much about anything, really. A lot of people at the NASA exhibit looked rather confused and unsure what to do, what was going on, etc.
3. Organization: BOTC walked into the Festival, paying our $5, around 5:30. Things were still being set-up, or exhibits were not set up at all. I know the drums were playing over at CSU, but there should have been music going at the main stage. Everthing seemed very un-organized and rather sloppy.
4. Lack of Content: BOTC may have missed some things, but the content of the festival seems rather weak. The "Architecture Cluster" at Gallery 1305 was the highlight of the exhibitions, which is not saying much since most of the gallery was utterly empty.
Conditions may change over the next few days of the Festival and BOTC hopes that they do. BOTC feels that this a valuable event that needs to succeed, but based on last night's experience, we are not overly optimistic.
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3 comments:
I personally enjoyed paying $5 for an exhibition I was in...
I am sorry that you were underwhelmed but I must say that has not been my experience or the experience of the families that I have talked to during the festival.
The Lisa Lock Dance Exhibition was fantastic. The NASA Glenn exhibits and movies in the Palace Theater are mindboggling. And I have found the playhouse square volunteers not only learning about the events they are helping with but also venturing into the festival and locating other things so they can steer people to other events.
yesterday afternoon, we met a family from Ashtabula that read about it in the paper and decided to pile into the car and stay for the weekend. As we left last night, I saw them again and asked them if they were glad they took the plunge. All five of them parents and children said "oh, yes!"
I will agree that signage and paths could be better defined and that descriptions could be a bit more descriptive.
The daily sheets handed out for events of the day are much better than the overall brochure for telling you where things are, what times, etc. but the overall brochure does highlight the bigger events of the festival.
An organic festival like this will get better each year as people like yoursellf and me offer suggestions on improvement. The Ingenuity Staff are committed to making this an international event.
i attended the festival on thursday for the drums, which was really danc-alicious, however when we headed to the playhouse square area, i too was a bit underwhelmed, though one should mention that hurricane force winds and rains has just whipped through town. that being said. the saturday and sunday showings were nothing like thursday, will nearly every nook and cranny of the festival area filled with something to see, smell, view, do, hear, etc. While I believe there is a lot of room for improvements, i hope you had the chance to make it down during the weekend!
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