The day started out with a walk that in years past began at 6am. This year, it was scheduled to start at 7am but started an hour late. It's hard to get up early, and in this heat. So, some took a pass on it this year, which may have been a good thing. The crowd entered to "I Love LA" blaring and confetti shooting out onto the walkers that came in the with the crowd.
Then, the actual "celebration"...
Well, to start off, parking was awful if you didn't "do the walk." Unless you wanted to pay 3 to 6 dollars and walk a few blocks, parking was impossible. If you got there early enough, you could park a few blocks away at a meter in Chinatown; otherwise, you'd have to pay. At an event like this, parking should be free to encourage attendance.
Now, the event itself - with all its staging and festivities - appeared to be more about the Mayor than about the City. Will Campbell says it all with this. But seriously, he added an energy to the event while speaking on stage at El Pueblo that made this seem to be political rally as he introduced his friends and touted their accomplishments. At one point, he even apologized to long-time City Birthday emcee, Tony Valdez, for "usurping his role." But, his office did coordinate the event that was interesting. The speeches took too long, especially in the heat. What was also surprising was the fact that the entertainment and speeches were not held on the newly re-done stage area that you see here...
...but instead were held on the Rec. & Parks portable stage 200 feet away, here:
There were City services and a few historical groups surrounding the bandstand in the middle of the plaza, but the space was fairly empty. Every Neighborhood Council in the City could have had a 6-foot table set up to promote their part of Los Angeles; there was space for a whole lot more:
But, they did have great food for free (but only for walkers) on side alley from Tommy's, Pink's, Barragan's, & Subway. What a crowd of people there were for the food:
And there was cake. Well, two, really (of significance). One was a meager cake they cut on stage that looked hand-made; the other was one of the largest cakes imaginable. Can you tell which cake is which?
Disney was there in full force with activities and giveaways for families, including a special illustration for coloring for the occasion:
And there were even snakes from the LA Zoo on scene. (Insert Snakes on a Plane joke here. How about, Snakes on a Plaza?)
Besides the unbearable heat, there could have been a lot of things that could be improved to make this event a truly City of Los Angeles event. True, we have 25 years until the next big City birthday... sort of. Actually, in April 2025, the city will celebrate it's 175th year as a City (incorporated in 1850), so we have 19 years to try to do this party right... and to include ALL of Los Angeles.
4 comments:
Does the city have a department that specializes in producing events? Most smaller cities combine it with cultural affairs...
The City has logistics coordinators through the General Services Department who oversee stages and such, but their is no "Special Events" coordinator in a department. All departments come together to produce events. There is a special events coordinator in the Mayor's office, who led this event. This may be why it was a "Mayor-heavy" event.
I think they might get more people at the event if they allowed people to make it into more of an athletic endeavor. A 6 a.m. bike ride, a 6:30 a.m. jog, and a walk later in the morning would probably do the trick.
The heat was pretty awful, and there was a caravan of vehicles to the rear of the marchers that were spewing their exhaust the whole time - yech. I learned something new about myself: I hate being chased by a fleet of street sweepers!
This is no suprise - look at how Los Angeles blew the millenuim celebration. I drove by the event and it was dead, dead, dead.
One of the problems with Los Angeles is that there isn't a fund akin to the Mayor's Discretionary Fund in Chicago, that can be raided to fund big events or special public projects. There may be a special events co-ordinator, but what really needs to be in place is the funding to pay outside, private contractors to provide the best entertainment that Los Angeles has to offer.
In most cities this kind of event would be a production of the Cultural Affairs department, but in Los Angeles that would be event suicide. The department neither has the funds nor the proper staff to produce events like this, and given their budget woes and the tremendous failure to realise the purpose of such a department in Los Angeles, it's not going to change.
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