Some of these thoughts were first published here on September 24, 2012. Updates have been made. On Sunday, there was a good Facebook discussion of these issues.
My personal position on Harvest Homecoming has remained fairly consistent, and so at the risk of offending the swill walk’s perennial night crawlers, let’s recap the argument.
First and foremost, no offense is intended toward Harvest Homecoming’s many volunteers. They're lifers. They believe. They work hard year-round, and their fundamental aim of maintaining a family-oriented annual celebration is admirable. None of us want Harvest Homecoming to disappear. We merely want it to begin marching in step with changing times, so as to better incorporate today's evolving New Albany into the festival's design.
Fact: Harvest Homecoming has gone as far as it possibly can while retaining an operational model built for the 1970s and 80’s, when downtown was utterly deserted and no one much cared either way. Back then, downtown was withering, but now it is returning to life -- entrepreneurs are doing something with it -- and the yearly clash of demographic priorities can only become more starkly evident as years pass. This will become even more of a problem as downtown apartments and condos come into existence and are occupied by residents expecting a certain ... that's right: Quality of life.
Today’s Harvest Homecoming must be persuaded, cajoled, prodded and/or threatened into commencing a reinvention of itself and a subsequent evolution into the sort of annual civic event better representing where and what the city is now, and in conceptual terms, a civic event that both passively mirrors and actively enhances the ongoing revitalization of downtown New Albany. Currently, it does neither.
A Facebook discussion participant explained it very clearly.
I grew up in California, so I speak as one who attended a lot of wine and art events. I think it might be time for our HHC officials to look around the United States and see what works as far as festivals. HHC is a good event, but I think it could be a signature event which combines the old with the new. I also think the art at this festival should be of high quality invited artists rather than the mundane. We should be celebrating all that is the best quality in Southern Indiana rather than settling for vendors who specialize in merchandise that is there for the short sale. I would not even mind high quality food coming over from Kentucky or even Ohio, if it improved the quality of our lives. We excel at beer, goat cheese and new restaurants. It seems to me we should be reveling in it.
The festival no longer should be permitted to be the short-term tail wagging an entire city’s 7/24/365 dog by advocating restrictive terms of downtown engagement, and in pursuing a plan of operation that routinely scuffles downtown’s fragile seedlings, whether planted in the dirt, or located behind those previously unoccupied storefronts.
Yes, it is true that progress has been made on this score, but not quickly enough. For so long as those downtown businesses located on Harvest Homecoming’s core street grid – businesses investing in the city and operating in the city year-round – must continue to fight for the simple right to have access to their own front doors during the festival’s booth days, and furthermore, be compelled to pay Harvest Homecoming a rental fee for a clear pathway to their own place of business, then something’s still awry in Come Pay City.
This begs the first of many questions, as hinted at yesterday:
How can the Board of Public Works countenance this pay-to-stay-open scheme?
Which precedent allows a four-day-yearly festival unattached to the city to charge for frontage on the city’s own streets and sidewalks?
Aren’t these businesses already paying taxes for this access?
Has anyone ever thought to ask them other stakeholders if they'd like to play, too?
More thoughts tomorrow.
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