Safety and Security at Art Fairs

This past weekend Trenton, New Jersey, hosted "Art All Night", intended to bring the community together. In the midst of it a gunfire broke out.

Organizers canceled the remainder of the event, billed as "24 hours of community, creativity and inspiration."

The festival typically draws more than 30,000 visitors to view work from more than 1,500 artists as well as exhibitions of glass blowing and woodwork, The Trentonian reported on its website. About 50 bands also play on three stages. 

Take care of yourselves out there.

Here is a thoughtful report from MSN.com: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/gang-shootout-at-new-jersey-arts-festival-kills-1-injures-22/ar-AAyMDWH

Learn more: http://nj1015.com/murphy-says-more-fed-gun-control-needed-after-art-show-shooting/

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  • Your heading reads "Safety and Security at Art Fairs." This has nothing to do with safety and security at art fairs.

  • I wish you hadn't posted this. It has nothing to do with us or any of our events. It was mostly a beer and music event that was supposed to last all night in a blue collar town. The so called art? It was not juried. Any person could bring 1 thing that would hardly be called art and it would be displayed for 24 hours. To post this here would be implying that this would have a connection to our shows is wrong. I consider us to be professionals and our events to be of the highest standards. At least, this would apply to the shows that I am part of. All the shows I do have taken security serious and have taken steps to make sure we are all safe. Maybe the effort by Trenton is not a bad thing but posting it here is.

  • You're right, Wally. This is not a show we would be applying to, but it is one town's outreach to improve their neighborhoods with art by children, by locals and by aspiring artists. Never a bad thing.

    Here is a little more about Trenton:

    TRENTON — Trenton is a capital city of more than 84,000 people that can often feel like two urban areas rolled into one. On State Street, beyond the State House with its golden dome, sit clean brick buildings that house deep-pocketed lobbying firms and a cafe where state employees in business suits were having lunch at outdoor tables on Monday afternoon.

    Yet a short drive in nearly any direction reveals boarded-up houses, sagging roofs, vacant lots and cracked roads. Signs pledging to buy homes in any condition for cash hang from the utility poles.

    In this bleak landscape, Art All Night has been a bright spot — an annual 24-hour art show featuring the paintings of children alongside works by the city’s growing artists’ community. A point of local pride, it has also been the centerpiece of an effort to revitalize downtown and repurpose its warehouses as art galleries, studios and event spaces. That light was dimmed over the weekend ... in what the authorities described as a showdown between rival gangs.

    “It was our worst nightmare,” said Lauren Otis, the executive director of Artworks Trenton, the nonprofit that produces the event, now in its 12th year. “It was horrible. It’s something that would be inexplicably horrible wherever it happened, but to have it happen in what was the most diverse event in Trenton, perhaps in New Jersey, at an event that was so popular — it was tragic. It eviscerated us.”

    More here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/nyregion/trenton-grieves-after-a...

  • It is tragic that this occurred. However if you look in to it a little more it should not be called an Art Festival as much as it should have been called a music festival featuring the 50 + bands that were advertised.

    This festival did not attract the audience that we as artist want to attract to our Art Festivals.

    And remember that age old advice that many of our parents gave us and many of us passed on.


    NOTHING GOOD HAPPENS AFTER MIDNIGHT !!!!
  • so sad....what have we, the artists, to do with gang violence ?

    I guess it was just the wrong place to be on Sunday night.

    Why can everybody have a gun in a big city?

    No need for self defence there, police will be at your door in a minute if you need them.

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