City Council Meeting: March 25, 2008

Agenda Item: 7-G

To: Mayor and City Council

From: Barbara Stinchfield, Director, Community & Cultural Services

Subject: Glow Festival Permitting

Recommended Action

Staff recommends that the City Council approve the proposed temporary ordinance to cover permitting and other issues associated with the production of the first Glow festival.

Executive Summary

Glow, is a dusk to dawn arts festival that will take place on the beach and Pier in Santa Monica. Glow will consist of a number of temporary site specific art installations and performances by local and international artists. The project grew out of the community input process surrounding Creative Capital, the City’s adopted cultural plan. Glow will be produced by the City in partnership with the Pier Restoration Corporation, the Convention and Visitors Bureau and Bayside, with public and private sector funding. Part of the premise of Glow is the unique beach front setting and a tribute to the grunion, a fish that lives in local waters and comes up to the beach to spawn creating a momentary ‘glow’. Glow is scheduled for July 19, 2008 and will be free to the public.

There is no existing mechanism to permit such a large and multi-faceted City event. For the last few months a team of representatives from all affected departments, as well as the partner agencies, has been meeting to discuss the logistics associated with the production of such an event and concluded that the best approach was to develop a temporary ordinance that would suspend specific regulations in the affected area for one night.

Background

Glow grew out of community demand for a signature cultural event, one that would be specific to Santa Monica and that would draw international attention, enhancing the city’s reputation as a destination for cultural tourism and showcasing its vibrant creative sector. Development of the event was one of the recommendations of the adopted community cultural plan as well as a specific objective of the Department’s FY 07/08 budget and work plan.

Discussion

Glow will take place on July 19^th 2008, from 7 pm to 7 am, on the Pier, the beach and parking lots adjacent to the Pier, as well as Palisades Park and Ocean Avenue between Colorado and Santa Monica Boulevards (art site map - Attachment 1). Each work of art will be created specifically for Glow and for the location in which the art is sited. For example artist Shih Chieh Huang is proposing to create a luminescent animated installation for the bike path under the pier and a group of artists and composers have developed an environmental soundscape for the Carousel. The event will be choreographed to ensure that some experiences are continuous and others happen at specific moments throughout the night. Response to Glow has been overwhelmingly positive with individuals, private foundations and corporations helping to underwrite close to half of the cost of this groundbreaking event. Funders cite the innovative nature of the festival, the caliber of the artists involved as well as broad public access as some of the reasons for their participation and support.

The logistics surrounding the production of each of the artworks, as well as the overall event are challenging. Glow’s success will rest not only on the quality of the art but in ensuring that participants have a positive experience and that impacts on the host facilities are minimal and remedied as quickly as possible. Issues of public safety and crowd management are being addressed by a special interdepartmental task force that has been meeting monthly to identify concerns and formulate solutions. Representatives of our partner organizations, the Pier, CVB and Bayside have also been attending the planning meetings. Each artist’s proposal will go through a rigorous review process after being chosen by the artist selection committee, including submittal to Risk Management and other affected departments or agencies for review and comment.

Attendance at Glow is estimated at 25,000 during the course of the night. In order to ensure that participants in the event have access to necessary services and amenities, and local businesses are given an opportunity to participate, a number of regulations will need to be suspended for the evening, these range from local ordinances to policies that regulate the use of public space and cover a range of items from the use of parking structures to the hours of operation of local restaurants. The area encompassed by this ordinance is slightly more expansive than the Glow festival area and is defined in the ordinance and in the map that is Attachment B of the ordinance.

Glow is envisioned as a biannual event that could in future years expand to encompass more of the key public destinations in Santa Monica. For example representatives of the Ocean Park Association and the Main Street Merchants inquired about including Main Street in future Glow festivals.

Commission Action

The Arts Commission is in full support of Glow and took action to allocate funds for the event as part of last year’s public art budget approval process on June 18^th, 2007.

Alternatives

Council could request changes to the proposed ordinance or could decline to resolve the permitting issues in this manner. If this were the case, staff would need to pursue an alternative to allow Glow to take place, perhaps in a more circumscribed manner or set of venues. Depending on the specific nature of any prescribed limitations, funding received by the Santa Monica Arts Foundation for Glow might have to be returned.

Public Outreach

Glow has been developed with extensive input from a broad range of community advisors and partners. In addition to the Arts Commission, consistent input has been provided by an advisory group of residents and local business leaders as well as representatives from the PRC, the CVB and Bayside. Staff also solicited input at a public meeting at the Ken Edwards Center which was covered in the Santa Monica Daily Press and the Mirror.

Financial Impacts & Budget Actions

The total budget for Glow is $300,000. Funding in the amount of $160,000 is available through the City’s public art funding with the balance coming from the Santa Monica Arts Foundation and other funding partners. Additional staff costs are associated with conducting festival activities; these costs will be identified in future Glow related staff reports when Council approves the contracts.

Prepared by:

Jessica Cusick, Cultural Affairs Manager

Approved:	Forwarded to Council:
Barbara Stinchfield Director, Community & Cultural Services	P. Lamont Ewell City Manager

Attachment 1: Glow Festival Area Map

Attachment 2: Proposed Ordinance