I sent the below letter to the coordinators of the First Fridays on 4th Street Fair / Block party. If you want to get more involved and make this a better event, here is their website complete w/ info on how to submit art and how to contact the coordinators:

First Fridays on 4th, City of Santa Rosa, CA Summer Block Party

Feedback: I live right down town Santa Rosa, (Luther Burbank Home and Gardens) and have been quite happy w/ past events that have happened at the A Street Art street fair events over the past couple years - great creative art, music, entertainment including roving actors, musicians, etc. I went to First Fridays on 4th for the first time this last July 3'd, partly because the past months I heard about it too late; this time a friend reminded me in time. I'm sorry to say that I was disappointed.

First, I went to the courthouse square; seemed like almost nothing was going on. From 4 -6 they had about 5 venders max, with art that attracted me so little, I just didn't feel like looking because it felt like the people there really hoped to sell their stuff and I was not buying, and not too many others were there standing around either. A band (looked like the Trailor Park rangers? had their name gotten out, would've had a bigger draw I'm sure) starting at 6, and almost no one was there.

We had young children who were bored, so we left Courthouse square to check out the other side of town (Railroad square). We took a free horse buggy ride (whoopty doo). I thanked the guy for the free ride and he said it was a thank you from the merchants for our attending the event (I didn't like that commercial sounding tone). What ever band was playing absolutely did NOT attract me to stick around. Now I am a big fan of music, and am quite sick of City of Santa Rosa's non stop support of mostly Rock and Roll. Why is there not enough great Jazz (real jazz, not just dixyland) - where's our local Max the Sax? Also, why do we not support more latin fusion / reggae hiphop bands or other cultural / fusion music? There are plenty of these local flavors that are NOT GANG RELATED! (Santa Rosa's big fear).

There was a bigger gathering of artists on this Railroad Square side of the freeway, all packed into the little Depot park. I did not feel like strolling through the tight space of all those paintings and photos croweded in there. I thought this was supposed to be a street fair / block party; It did not feel like either was going on, on either side of the freeway.

I come to an art event like this for visual flair / stimulation. There are SO many creative artists around this county, and the way you have it set up, restrictions for displays etc, how can there be much creativity. The whole thing seems hypocritical. How can you squeez art into little square sections. THAT is not art; it only represents a very small section of art, artists who want to sell their little items? What about Multi media artists, my favorite kind? I saw NO jugglers, dancers, actors, martial artists, other theatrical types, clowns (and we have plenty of those in this county that are unique and creative (not just the bozo types)). What about ethnic art? I saw no art bikes or art cars, no African, Carribean, or Taiko drummers (we have lots of those here, and people LOVE it), no mimers, belly dancers, acrobats, sidewalk chalk artists, hello?

NO offense to any of you personnally, this is business / tax dollars talking; but I think you guys need help with getting the word out AND with how to set up a street fair. I don't know if you are being restricted by the city itself, or if you need to look around you and see that Sonoma County is FULL of experienced event Coodinators / Networkers (including myself - and many I know) who could fill the town with awesome art on these nights, boy especially if your coodination jobs are paid? Even, if they're not paid jobs...we can do way BETTER! Come on this is the CITY of Santa Rosa, the largest city between SF and Eureka. If it's not your fault, and the fault of restrictions by the city, than shame on the city of Santa Rosa - you need the peoples' support to change. No wonder there is an Art Protest planned for Aug. 8th this year. (see my post of a few days ago here on waccobb):
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/gener...html#post92760

I will be posting this feedback statement to other community bulletin boards to get more folks interested in making the First Friday's on 4th Art night a better night.