What’s at stake?
Last July, Fresno leaders abruptly cancelled the first Thursday downtown street fair that spawned on ArtHop nights, frustrating street vendors and local businesses who depended on the cash from the monthly event drawing as much as 16,000 people downtown.
Talks are underway to bring back a version of the popular outdoor event, but they’re surfacing the same tensions: pricey event costs for the city and the Fresno Arts Council’s desire to keep ArtHop focused on art galleries.
Why Not Wednesday, the city’s more structured answer to the sprawling street fair that used to happen on ArtHop nights downtown, had its best night so far in February.
Approximately 2,300 people showed up to the event’s sixth monthly installment. That’s according to data from Why Not Wednesday organizer the Downtown Fresno Partnership, based on the AI tool it uses to estimate foot traffic from smartphone movement in a given location over time.
Still, that’s only a fraction of the tens of thousands of people ArtHop used to draw before the city’s crackdown on the street fair in July 2024. But it’s still a good sign for Why Not, and with warm weather on the way in the coming months, some vendors who were looking for a substitute for the canned street fair are hopeful.
“It’s too early to tell, but from the looks of it,” clothing vendor Andrew Lorenti told Fresnoland at February’s Why Not Wednesday, “I feel like it’s going to only get bigger from here.”
But some uncertainty about the event’s future lingers, and part of that is driven by statements from the Downtown Fresno Parternship’s own leaders regarding plans to reintroduce a street fair on ArtHop nights downtown.
Ever since the city put an end to the massive street fair that had taken over downtown on ArtHop nights – without any of the comprehensive permitting, road closures, policing and procedures city officials wanted for an event that size – some vendors and downtown business owners have been aching for a return to the street fair on first Thursdays.
Elliott Balch, president of the Downtown Fresno Partnership, wants to act on that desire from the community. He said his organization is “actively advocating for and exploring” the idea of hosting a street fair on ArtHop nights downtown, though he didn’t commit to a specific timeline.
He said the city lost something when the city got rid of the street fair on ArtHop nights – and it wasn’t just business activity.
“When we do a street market, it’s not just about transactions. It is creating an environment where culture emerges. There’s a reference point that people have throughout the month and the rest of their life back to that shared experience,” he said, “and it becomes part of what it means to be a young person in Fresno.”
Balch said the goal is to make a street fair happen on both first Thursdays and Why Not Wednesday each month, especially since they’re spread out – ArtHop the first week of the month, and Why Not in the third week.
He added that it’s “premature” to consider whether the Partnership would walk away from Why Not Wednesday in order to support a street fair on first Thursdays.
Others, including some of the ArtHop organizers, aren’t so sure.
They worry the return to a street fair on first Thursdays would resurrect some of the issues that got it shut down in the first place – and what the move would mean for ArtHop.
“By opening up this can of worms, you’re just going to bring back the idea that somehow ArtHop is dead,” said Lilia Gonzáles Chávez, executive director of the Fresno Arts Council which runs ArtHop. “We’re not ‘bringing back ArtHop.’ ArtHop is,” and has been for 30 years, she said.
“You have three other Thursdays in the month,” she added. “If Thursdays are somehow a magical day, activate another Thursday. Leave first Thursday to ArtHop.”
Councilmember Miguel Arias, who sits on the downtown Partnership’s board, also said it feels too soon to talk about bringing back a street fair on first Thursdays before they’ve answered some money questions.
That includes issues like securing appropriate liability insurance for the event amid skyrocketing costs in California’s insurance industry more broadly, as well as the city share of costs for the event amid a projected $20 million budget shortfall.
How’s Why Not Wednesday going?
The Fulton street fair that once took place on ArtHop nights was a tough act to follow.
The corridor drew as many as 16,000 downtown and particularly to the Brewery District, according to Downtown Fresno Partnership estimates using Placer.ai technology.
Why Not Wednesday’s numbers have been up and down since last September when it debuted. But February’s high of 2,300 attendees was a promising sign for vendors that the event could gain momentum.
Some of them prefer a smaller street fair with more structure.
“I think it’s way more sustainable than ArtHop was (for street vendors),” said Fabio Linares, operator of Bad Kids Club, a vintage seller that helps organize vendors at Why Not Wednesday.
“The city is contributing so many key elements to this,” he added, including restrooms and street closures, “that really the only thing that’s missing is community participation. We all know that that sometimes takes time.”
Not all vendors and pop-ups benefited from the elbow-to-elbow crowds on Fulton in the old days. Collectives like the Central Valley Camera Club say that after multiple years of showing up to ArtHop, they’re finally hitting their stride at Why Not Wednesday.
The group, which takes portraits at the event, said they appreciate how attendees aren’t in as much of a hurry at Why Not Wednesday.
“(The streets) were so packed, and everybody had to get shuttled through the walkways, that nobody slowed down and actually took pictures,” he said. “By the end of it we had less sales than we do now, at a smaller event.”
But other businesses, including brick-and-mortar institutions downtown that used to have their best sales on ArtHop nights, have been hurting ever since August.
Michael Cruz, president of Tioga Sequoia Brewing Company, estimates Tioga has lost out on tens of thousands of dollars in sales since last August when the street fair got shut down.
They’ve had to cut back on part-time staff hours as a result.
“We probably would have an extra five to eight part-timers on staff just to handle ArtHop alone,” Cruz said. “We could always, every month, give that many people hours, and we just don’t have that anymore.”
Unfortunately, Why Not Wednesday hasn’t made a dent in those losses yet.
“Maybe the first one, we saw a little bit of a bump in sales and attendance to our property,” Cruz said, “but the last few, it’s no different than a normal Wednesday for us.”
“It’s not a great day to attract crowds. It’s just not,” he added. “But, you know, I think anything helps on a Wednesday. Wednesdays are typically slow for most businesses, especially downtown.
“It couldn’t hurt us, but it’s not making up the significant difference from what we did for first Thursdays.”
How’s ArtHop going?
Despite the city’s announcement last July, ArtHop never went away. The ban only affected the simultaneous street fair that had spawned from the arts-focused event over ArtHop’s 30-year history.
But not everyone understood that amid the frenzy of media coverage, said Gonzáles Chávez of the Fresno Arts Council.
“Even just this last ArtHop, someone came in and said, ‘Oh, I’m glad you’re still doing this. I had heard that ArtHop closed.’ And we said, no,” Gonzáles Chávez said, “ArtHop is alive and well.”
As for specific attendance figures, the Arts Council doesn’t track those.
The oft-cited figure of how many folks ArtHop nights drew downtown – upward of 15,000 people – also came from the Downtown Fresno Partnership.
In addition to tracking a dropoff in foot traffic on Fulton over the past six months, Balch said their Placer.ai figures show foot traffic was cut in half in the Mural District, too – where several ArtHop venues are concentrated – on ArtHop nights.
Gonzáles Chávez said it’s true that not only cold weather but some of the confusion surrounding the July 2024 announcement hurt attendance to some of the galleries. But she’s not sure how accurately those Placer.ai figures measure visits to indoor galleries.
She’s confident attendance will continue to bounce back either way.
“I think ArtHop is going to rebound on its own,” she said, adding, “I don’t think it needs the Downtown Partnership to do anything.”
Not all galleries even felt the pinch over the last six months, either.
Robert Katsusuke Ogata, whose gallery is on Mono Street between Van Ness and L streets, said he didn’t see much of a change in visitation on ArtHop nights even after the city cracked down on the street fair that used to happen one block over on Fulton.
It doesn’t hurt that they’re right by a large parking lot for the South Stadium building (formerly occupied by Bitwise) where people tend to park and not get ticketed on ArtHop nights, he said.
But it’s also a product of the reputation the gallery has built. Ogata is one of the founders of ArtHop, having opened his gallery to the public once a month over 30 years ago. That blossomed into what the city now knows as ArtHop.
“People realize that we’re open and we’re very serious about what we do down here, and we’ve been here since ’95,” he said. “We have a clientele that understands that.”
What’s on the table going forward?
Balch said he hopes the partnership could pull together a street fair for first Thursdays soon, though he said it’s too early to give a specific timeline.
Having the “template” of Why Not Wednesday – as a permitted event with pre-arranged street closures and security – may help speed up the process, he added.
Some downtown business owners are on board, including Cruz of Tioga-Sequoia.
“If we had a priority, and I think if I’m speaking for the rest of the businesses in the Brewery District,” Cruz said, “we’d want first Thursdays back.”
But there are many questions left to answer before that can happen.
There’s the cost – which Balch said he believes would be around $300,000 annually – and where that might come from, between city funds and the Partnership’s budget.
Some of those costs include covering police overtime – a key issue that led the city to choose the day for Why Not Wednesdays in the first place, due to a surplus of officers working that night.
There’s also the volatile cost of liability insurance in California’s market, Balch said – a requirement for organizers applying for a special event permit in Fresno.
All of that makes it difficult to support both Why Not Wednesday and a first Thursday event, Balch acknowledged.
“The resource limitations are definitely part of figuring out the puzzle,” he said.
Before those questions are addressed, Arias said it feels like they’re jumping the gun by talking about reintroducing a street fair on ArtHop nights.
“I do see us having a role,” he said, “but we can’t be the sole providers of resources for events.”
Whether or not they find answers to these questions, Why Not Wednesday is sticking around for the time being.
Vendor applications for Why Not Wednesday are posted on the Downtown Fresno Partnership’s website for March through June.
Several vendors plan to help it continue to build, little by little, including Linares of Bad Kids Club.
“Where else are we, you know,” he said, “partying on the street on a monthly basis?”
