Holidazzle Market

[min-chi-cbus]

For some reason I thought this festival took place along ALL of Nicollet Avenue, like the Hollidazzle Parade sort of did. Is it just within Peavey Plaza, for the most part??

[mplsjaromir]

Yeah. How would you put a fence around ALL of Nicollet Avenue?

[David Greene]

I can see it moving to "The Commons" when that's completed. Or having the shops lined on Nicollet and have the reindeer, carousel, and stage moved to "The Commons."

Those are pretty far apart. The whole point is to get people downtown to eat at restaurants and go shopping at stores. No way this moves off the Mall, and it shouldn't.

[EOst]

They won't be able to block the street off this way once the Streetcar is built, though.

[twinkess]

For some reason I thought this festival took place along ALL of Nicollet Avenue, like the Hollidazzle Parade sort of did. Is it just within Peavey Plaza, for the most part??

The paid area is restricted to Peavey. They have a couple blocks of Nicollet blocked off for free areas like a "parade float" where you can get your family's picture taken, a performance area for choirs, a doughnut cart, etc.

[xandrex]

I can see it moving to "The Commons" when that's completed. Or having the shops lined on Nicollet and have the reindeer, carousel, and stage moved to "The Commons."

Those are pretty far apart. The whole point is to get people downtown to eat at restaurants and go shopping at stores. No way this moves off the Mall, and it shouldn't.

Well...and the Vikings have control of the Commons on the weekends still, so that's a no-go anyway

[David Greene]

So as not to be too much of a Negative Nellie, I just want to state that I liked the concept overall. In fact I would have liked to stay around longer and maybe buy some stuff but it was just too hard to get around. With a little retooling this could really be a great annual thing.

On a side note, we went to the Macy's display for the first time ever. It turns out that Black Friday evening is a great non-crowded time to go. Now that we've seen it once I'm not sure we'll go back to see the same display every year. We'll probably go back once Julian can actually remember the experience.

[mullen]

i think the lesson here is that people want to be come downtown during the holidays just as they've always done. it was gratifying to see the street/sidewalks full of people rather than a typical cold weather saturday where the mall can seem barren. this market will be tweaked i'm sure to make it easier to nagivate.

[Silophant]

Holiday market fun fact: The mulled wine comes in souvenir mugs that say "Minneapolis Holiday Market 2014" on them. The "Holiday Market 2014" portion is a sticker, and if you peel it off it says "Christmas Market 2014" underneath. So apparently the PC name change was a fairly late decision.

[Nick]

That's actually hilarious.

[TroyGBiv]

I'm all for sensitivity and diversity... but that is just stupid... cuz a sticker is just pointing out the change...

[nBode]

I went to the Holidazzle Village briefly this evening. Didn't go into the market; there was a line down the block to get tickets. So apparently it is popular enough. Did get to see the glass blowing demo, which was really cool. Overall impression: Really not a whole lot to do in the village part, but definitely a good start. I can see this growing into something really grand.

[kirby96]

Put a fork in it. Tevlin just absolutely skewered the Market on the Strib site.

[mullen]

yea let's program events downtown based on the opinions of a columnist.

[Silophant]

Put a fork in it. Tevlin just absolutely skewered the Market on the Strib site.

Eh, I suspect that the Downtown Council is going to put more weight on the healthy weekend attendance and the supportive comments from at least one actual downtown business than on whining from a Strib columnist and a bunch of Facebookers.

[kirby96]

^You think he's wrong? I think he's right on. It's half-a***d. Like whoever was in charge didn't really care. Pretty embarrassing to the city, actually.

[MNdible]

Not that it's really an excuse, but it certainly doesn't seem like they left themselves enough time to really execute this idea well.

[mplsjaromir]

I love cognitive dissonance of "it is unpopular" and "it is too crowded". Remember when bike lanes where a thing until Tevlin eviscerated them in one his columns?

[Silophant]

^You think he's wrong? I think he's right on. It's half-a***d. Like whoever was in charge didn't really care. Pretty embarrassing to the city, actually.

Yes, I think he's wrong. While I'm the first to agree that there's major improvements to be made, this is the first time they've done something like this in this city. You have to start somewhere, and in this case they clearly made the decision to start with the weekend experience. There's no reason to believe its not going to improve every year. Its not like it isn't obvious that most of the fun stuff is weekend only. Going to it on a weeknight and basing your review off of that is like intentionally avoiding Valleyfair all summer, then going in October and bitching that the waterpark is closed.

[Anondson]

Tevlin wrote it so? Ah.