Surveying the throngs of people who swarmed Charles Street last weekend for Artscape - the first time the festival expanded onto Baltimore's premier street and into the Station North Arts and Entertainment District - the city's promotions director said, "We've probably brought five years' worth of new people to the district in one weekend."
Bill Gilmore could afford to boast. Artscape expertly built on its base in Bolton Hill to spread north and east onto Charles Street, drawing thousands of people to the galleries, restaurants and shops that make up the city's designated arts district in Midtown Baltimore.
Load of Fun Studios reported that more than 800 people passed through its doors - its biggest weekend in its 2 1/2 -year history. Metro Gallery was packed to capacity most of the weekend, its concerts so popular that the windows were opened so people could hear from the sidewalks. Station North officials gave out more than 1,000 brochures promoting the district and signed up more than 500 people for their weekly events e-mail.
"I had people coming from the D.C. area who expressed a lot of interest and were really curious about what's happening here in Baltimore," said David Bielenberg, executive director of Station North Arts and Entertainment Inc., a nonprofit that manages the district.
Artscape officials said they would definitely return to Charles Street next year. They credited the midway set up on the Charles Street bridge, with interactive exhibits, as well as the concert stage in the 1700 block of the street with drawing crowds to the expanded Artscape, which is centered on Mount Royal Avenue.
"There were enough things to get people to not only turn the corner but to keep going to see what was next," said Gilmore, executive director of the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, pointing to the do-it-yourself exhibits that drew 100 new artists to the festival and the digital photo wall that displayed shots of festivalgoers.
"It was a good thing we did expand, because we needed the space," Gilmore said. "There were plenty of people to spread around the entire site. ... Now there's thousands and thousands of people who know what's in the district, where before they might not have known those businesses existed."
The city does not make crowd estimates for Artscape, billed as the country's largest free public arts festival, but Gilmore said hundreds of thousands of people attended. "We don't care what the number is as long as everybody's happy," he said.
