Feedback on the Home Tour
Today was the Old Seminole Heights Home Tour. I did not go on the tour because Susan had some of her art there. I was impressed as to how well the trolley's were rolling and how well the volunteers directed the traffic. I heard many people were escpecially impressed with the house on Florida Avenue built by the blind man. As usual this is a tour other neighborhoods could learn from. Starbucks apparently did well. At Starbucks, City Council candidate (City Wide) Terry Neal of Temple Crest was chatting with people.
The Art part was disappointing in that there was only 7 people set up. Susan, Jimmy Steel, Steve Gluckman, Lori Ballard, The Artisan's Workshop, Warm Sand Fused Glass, Larry Gagner and Artistic Visions (I think). The artist who were there had great work, I wished there had been more. Perhaps the event needs to be made more formalized and organized and publicized the same amount as the tour. There could be 20 to 30 artists there easily. It might also help it the food was mixed in with the art.
I also wonder why I did not see any materials/brochures/flyers or menu for the businesses in the hood. Its good to publicize our businesses.
22 comments:
We saw some people getting off of a trolley earlier - I assumed it was the home tour.
Anyway - just wanted to let you know that you've been blogrolled! :)
Beverly
I didn't think that the 1970's house belonged on the tour. When I think Old Seminole Heights I think Bungalows not ranch style houses. Just my opinion. It just seemed really out of place.
As the Chair of the Home Tour and Vice President of the association, I am sorry that you feel that Old Seminole Heights is only made up of Bungalows. That is definitely not the case, and part of the purpose of this tour is to show people that it is a neighborhood made up of many styles of homes. The homes in this neighborhood can uniquely show the history our country has come through. We have late 1800’s farm houses from the period when this area was farm land, to the Bungalows built in the ‘Florida Boom’ years of the 1920-30s, the post-war homes of the 1940-50’s and this ranch style home shows the neighborhood growing through the 1970’s. Of course mixed in with all of these are the ‘vacation homes’ that were built for the snow birds to spend the winter months in.
Next year we look forward to having someone step forward and spend the time it takes to develop an ‘Artist Exhibit’. The current committee does not have time nor the expertise to do this effectively. Someone has been identified for next year.
As far as advertising, those advertisers who pay for ads in the Home Tour Brochure or provide ‘In Kind’ support of the Home Tour are permitted to place flyers at the Garden Center on the day of the tour. If you have a business that would like to use this event to spread the word about their business, please contact me or any other OSHNA Board member for details. This year those advertisers and sponsors reached over 1,500 participants, not bad for a Sunday afternoon.
Next year the date for the tour is the same as always, the 1st Sunday in April (April 1, 2007). Mark your calendars now!
the home tour was an outstanding afternoon of entertainment, as usual. all the houses were intriguing. the vast majority of attendees, im sure, enjoyed the 70s ranch as much as anything else. i know i did! its great to show the variety of architecture.
im surprised most of the seminole hgts businesses, especially restaurants, dont have a presence at this event, though. duh! its only the busiest day of the year. viva la fridas was closed when thousands of people walked past it on the way to the 'blind man's house.'
where were the taco bus people? they cd have certainly improved on the hot dogs and soda, no knock on the boy scouts who had the common sense to be out there selling.
next year, get the business people, food vendors, not just starbucks, out at the garden center and make it a real event!
I am upset that you judge the quality and success of the Seminole Heights home tour by how many "art vendors" are there. When the event was over, I hit your blog to see if you had any sort of statistics on how many people showed up to tour homes (Becuase the turn out was huge this yet). Instead of statistics, I am greeted with your complaints that more people didnt advertise their business or display art, at a HOME TOUR.
Anyways, I had a blast at the tour of homes. This years appeared to be the biggest ever.
I concur! Attended every home tour. This was the best! Congratulations to the Home Tour group for a great event.
I did not judge the quality of the home tour by the number of artists who showed up.
I judged the Art Event of the Home Tour, which essentially has no negative bearing on how well the Home Tour went. If there was no art event, people would not really notice. The art event is mere decoration.
This event met its goals. A casual art event where people who are interested showing their work can essentially just show up.
It does not mean the work was viewed very much or that people sold much art, if any. Artists can't come just to an event just for the fresh air. You can get an artist to show up once but it is unlikely the will return to the next year's event.
This art event has so much possibilities, to complement the home tour and to bring more people to the event, and a place artists can make some money. This would make this tour stand out even more than the other tours.
I think this tour is the premier Spring tour in the Tampa Bay area. That does not mean there is not room for improvement. What is 2000 people came instead of 1200, because of the addition of an full art event?
Is the attendance confirmed? I mean for real- not the same old "1500" the committee says every year.
Wondering if someone had the skinny on the actual attendance numbers.
I agree the selection of homes was EXCELLENT- just seemed like lower turnout this year...
Not being critical. Just wondering- as the media coverage was spotty at best.
I didn't really have time to browse the artwork, sadly. We started the tour at 11:30 and ended at near 4pm and we hadn't seen all the houses yet. In order to truly take in an art show of any size, we would defintely have missed some of the houses - which is, after all, the point of the home tour. If a Seminole Heights art show wants to be something other than a 'decoration' to the home tour, it needs to be better advertised and have extended hours or - as I would suggest - be its own entity. Just my thoughts.
Thanks to the use of numbered wristbands this year, the committee can confirm the attendance figures. Last year the Home Tour drew 1,200 participants and the year before 1,100. We are happy to report that we were able to acheive the attendance figure of year 5 which had the best attendance figures before this year. Thank you to everyone who attended. I also want to thank my committee for all of their dedication and hardwork over the past 9 months. We are now on a 3 month vacation.
RE: ART at the home tour - I think that Seminole Heights is defined in one aspect by the home tours - it would be great to have us be know for the premier "artist event" in the city - not an invite only event like Gasparilla Art Show - that event is always enjoyable but it has grown from a local event to a sponsored national event.
I know we have the artists and the events - pick a date and have a real art show - not just an added attraction to be viewed while one waits for the trolley.
P.S.
Kinda like Gala Corina for the 'hood on a yearly basis!! Now that's a thought!
I believe an offer was extended to B'GOSH for a presence at the home tour. It would have been nice to have had them set up a display table to highlight another aspect of the neighborhood.
Yes, B'GoSH could have set up, but we are so new we couldn't pull it together in time.....hopefully next year.
AND...We need more members!!
Sherry, B'GoSH Prez
I thought this year's tour was wonderful. I loved the diversity of the homes, and particularly liked the many homes that were done over time, by homeowner creativity and sweat! Comment about the art. I think art and home tours will always be a difficult marriage. Problem is that a day of touring homes is a full day. Art is a different day. If the art is not located "in the path" of the home tourer, it will go unseen. People are focused on the tour and catching the trolley. The garden center is a "take off point" and not a lounging area. The art would do better as a stop along the way, or if at the center, then a lot more need to go on there. There needs to be excitement, something to draw people to the art. A reason to leave the purpose of the tour and cross the turf needs to be provided. If a home tour attendee looks across the landscape. does not understand what he sees, and is not drawn to find out then he won't. Like I said it is a difficulty marriage. Needs a counselor!
I am one of the artists who was at the tour and I think you've all made excellent points and suggestions. We're trying to start a group made up of central Tampa artists and I'll bring your suggestions with me to the first meeting.
As to the home tour, I am always disappointed not to be able to attend because I love it. So, not only did I not sell any art, but I missed the beautiful homes and gardens.
So based on the feedback, it seems that not much should be done about the art event at the home tour, instead the work ahould be done on making it a separate event. Okay, Good.
For what it's worth, perhaps there could still be an art segment of the home tour but, as suggested, either make it a stop on the tour(similar to Gidden's park on the SESH tour) or make it better advertised. If I had not been a blog reader I wouldn't have known that there was a show due to the lack of advertising at the tour itself. Perhaps some signage in the ticketing area (if there was any it went unnoticed by me),again, if I overlooked it, I apologize, but I don't think the tour map had any mention of it either. Additionally, perhaps the trolley guides could mention it as well(on the two trolleys we rode, it was never spoken of). One other thing that would have given us more opportunity to view the art segment, would be the art show getting started perhaps and hour or so before the tour. When I arrived at 1130, there were a number of folks milling about waiting for the doors to open, while only a few of the artists seemed set up.
Again, we need to remember the focus is on the home tour and not the art event - the offer is extended to the artist because of their large presence in the neighborhood. As previously mentioned, the focus of many of the visitors is to see all of the houses in the allocated time and with the neighborhood being so large it is quite the challange without the pull of the art at the garden center.
Not to short-change the artists but many people don't take the time to go and see them on this day. There really should be a concerted effort for the artists to have an event that can truly focus on their efforts in setting up and their effort for the works they have created.
that is why the gardens were dropped from the tour several years ago - the owners that were just gardens on the tour did not get the traffic of the houses. Feedback is that visitors did not come to the event to see the gardens - if there was a house that had a great yard it was appreciated but not many people went out of the way for the garden.
Garden tours are for gardens, home tours are for houses and art shows are for artist - trying to add anything else into the mix just creates static for the whole event and it becomes too fragmented and visitors don't know what to go see.
I had my art at the Southeast Seminole Hts. home tour. The organizers did alot to promote the art and make sure foot traffic flowed through the vendor/art area. They made it a stop on the trolley, had trolley guides hype the art, and even gave folks extra incentive to see the art by offering a prize drawing to all who had their entries signed by each and every vendor. They also hired a harp player, made sure there was food for sale and places for people to sit at the vendors site. We still had very low traffic. I had two small sales (but it was friends who bought) and talked to many disappointed artists. The person next to me selling jewelry seemed to do pretty good. Many of the tourers came to the booths just to get their prize entries signed and didn't even bother to look at the art. So, I totally agree with the person who feel the art needs to be a separate event.
As a member of the SOH Home Tour Committee I have to agree that the art show was rather skimpy this year. We have discussed having an art show separate from the home tour. The original idea was that as people wait for the trolleys they could wander the art show. This does not seem to happen much. As I am a "trolley wench" during the home tour, I do not get to wander through the art show. We are discussing having a separate art show next year. We'll see.
As for attendance, there were actually 1,500 people at attendance at this year's Home Tour. We counted. It's a real number. The best Home Tour ever. We need to thank Christie for putting it together.
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