Downtown Art Walk too popular, will go on hiatus

Costs were rising with the crowds and the emphasis of the monthly Thursday gatherings has drifted away from art to being a big sidewalk and food party. When the official Downtown Art Walk returns in January, it will switch to a weekend day and be held quarterly, the organizers say on their website. "The only way to make it viable is to scale it back to what it originally was," founder Bert Green told Blogdowntown. "I think this is actually going to great for the Art Walk." But there's a problem. The event has become so popular beyond the original Downtown arty types that it's an open question whether the crowds will keep coming anyway on Thursdays, even if the galleries are closed. After all, as the organizers say, it has grown "to become the largest regularly occurring event in the center city."