What Happened to Art Hop?
Category: New & Noteworthy
By Elliott Balch
Longtime Downtownistas know Art Hop is one of the special gems in our community — not just a Downtown phenomenon, but a true Fresno original. It’s a testament to the power of collective action. Nearly 30 years ago, galleries and artists who were neighbors and friends made an event out of their informal fellowship, every first Thursday evening. The magic happened when they invited the rest of us to come discover what they were up to.
Two decades ago the Downtown Fresno Partnership’s predecessor Association noticed the Fulton Mall was surrounded by activity but empty on these nights, despite its role as a cultural landscape. We started hosting events with live music and vendors on Thursday evenings that added to the Downtown experience for those who were — and weren’t — coming Downtown for Art Hop. The goal always has been a Downtown where different communities find themselves, and find each other, where there is room enough for everyone and we lead with love for our community.
In the years after Fulton Street reopened to provide more visibility for such activities, the Partnership helped independent, community-based organizers behind the scenes to file permits and provide insurance for events at multiple locations along Fulton including the Brewery District, Kern Plaza, Mariposa Plaza, and Warnor’s Corner. These leaders brought out artists, managed the vendors, and used the fees to pay expenses.
The activations were so successful that vendors started popping up wherever they wanted, filling in spaces along the street. Crowds multiplied in a feedback loop, sometimes reaching 15,000 or more in a single evening. The people looked like Fresno, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse, many of them young adults but ranging from babies to Boomers. For community members who’d worked for decades to boost foot traffic on Fulton, including those of us at the Partnership, seeing this happen was a profoundly moving experience.
In 2023 the Partnership began urging the City to work with us to address the concerns we were also observing, including traffic safety, security, restroom impacts, and the fair treatment of vendors. For all Downtown’s challenges, it has never had to deal much with physical violence or gang activity, yet this was starting to creep into Fulton Street on these evenings. Our goal was to let the street market continue, but as a high-quality and safe experience, by investing in the basic structure that would be required with a larger event permit. Knowing the costs of this can be staggering, DFP pursued multiple potential funding sources to make this possible, unsuccessfully.
These street market events in the public realm were never official Art Hop venues — but, as powerful spaces for culture-making that happened on Art Hop nights, the Art Hop label grew to be applied broadly to the point that many no longer knew the difference. Our friends at the Fresno Arts Council, which is responsible for promoting Art Hop, were concerned that because people were using the name to refer to everything happening downtown on those nights, the street market was competing rather than complementing and had become a threat to the identity of what Art Hop truly was, is, and should be.
The City responded by deciding as of August 2024 to not allow permitted events or street vendors at all on Art Hop nights until further notice. In the context of that decision, abhorring a vacuum, the Partnership worked with the City, volunteer organizers, artists, and vendors in our community to launch Why Not Wednesday in September, on its own day of the month. The Partnership, the City, and others have made significant commitments of scarce resources to make this possible, and our Annual Report highlights some of the positive results.
Meanwhile, in the first six months since the City “pressed the reset button” on the street market, visits to Fulton Street on Art Hop nights were down 83% from the same months a year earlier, a cumulative loss of 62,000 visits, as measured by Placer.ai. Brewery District businesses reported a collective loss in sales of $30,000 or more per month. We also started hearing from Art Hop venues that they too had experienced an unwelcome reduction in community turnout. To gauge this we used Placer.ai to also measure visits to the Mural District and found, year over year, a surprising 60% decrease in visits on Art Hop nights there as well.
As of this writing, the Partnership is at the center of work with multiple partners and the City to bring back the Fulton Street Market on Art Hop nights. Our goals are to welcome in our community, create economic opportunity for area businesses and vendors, center the arts through live performance and makers, and ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for everyone. Different from before, we’ll be closing streets, permitting and guiding vendors, providing restrooms, carrying insurance, paying performing artists, and hiring security. Why Not Wednesday has demonstrated many of the elements required for managing the Fulton Street Market.
As the Fulton Street Market makes its return, Art Hop remains alive and kicking, just as it has been for decades. So visit your favorite studios or galleries, hop to a new venue, or come out to the street and explore something different. And invite a friend!