Can whomever is in charge of parking for First Friday put down the bong? So I followed the advice on their website and went to the Old City Hall Parking Garage...which was empty! For free parking for First Friday I expected to see cars! And a shuttle! But no...only a handful of cars and not a shuttle to be seen...you gotta walk to El Cortez to catch a shuttle. And when you make it over there a 40 minute wait for a shuttle is routine.
Rather than write another chapter of War & Peace, here's the quickie version.
Parking: Not well thought out. At all. Quite frankly it sucks.
Shuttle: Pain in the rear to get to, cool as heck to ride, route they take makes no sense.
Art: Please show me some art! Paintings! Sketches! Not flea market crap I can find off an exit ramp along the Interstate in Arizona. ART!!!! LOCAL ARTISTS!!! If you have First Friday in the Arts District for Pete's sake have some dang ART!!!!
Food Trucks: I wanted to check out SlidinThru and see if I could give them a second chance. The line made me say that's not going to happen. The food truck placement is working a bit too well to draw traffic.
Security: When someone moves an art car and 8 LVMPD officers show up it might be a sign you're a bit overstaffed on security.
Live Music: Thank you Skull Candy for headphones that work well as it drowned out the screech fest. Before I turned them on...what I heard was not good.
In short First Friday is slipping. And even with Zappos throwing money at it...it's not enough. The people running this just don't get it. Tony Hsieh and Co. would be better off paying to ship the FF leadership to other cities just once to see how it's done.
1 Star: Because I regret wasting time to go to this one! It SERIOUSLY SUCKED.