Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

UPDATE 12-04-2007: Kilgore’s speech, which is linked to in this post, has been removed from the Partnership web site. We present it here for readers reference

From the Tampa Downtown Partnership’s Monday Morning Memo of November 19:

During the Partnership’s most recent Tampa Electric Company/Novare-Intown Group Downtown Debriefing Series event, Michael Kilgore, Vice president of Marketing for the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center made a strong case in his presentation that aids in dispelling rumors that no one comes downtown.

He did a lot more than that. Without question, there are a lot of things happening in downtown Tampa, and a whole bunch of people who come downtown for more than just the workday. But Kilgore pointed out several reasons as to WHY people BELIEVE there is nothing to do downtown. Here are just a couple of Michael Kilgore’s observations:

• We don’t have masses of people wandering around downtown looking for something to do. It’s not pedestrian friendly. We need to fix that.
• A way for residents to park once and visit numerous venues.
• A way for hotel and convention guests to ride public transportation to Channelside or other downtown restaurants and then to an arts and entertainment venue and then back to the hotel without worrying about getting stranded.
• A comprehensive (and I stress comprehensive) calendar that would provide one-stop shopping for interested patrons.
• A continuous program with downtown merchants and restaurants to help us get the word out on downtown arts and entertainment activities. One thing I do notice in St. Petersburg is that you can’t walk three shops without seeing a poster for an upcoming event. I don’t think they have more events; they have more posters and more awareness.
• A belief that arts patrons – and I say this as a Bucs ticket holder and a former member of the Outback Bowl board – are at least as valuable as sports patrons.
• Effective use of the riverwalk as a destination and as a conduit for pedestrian traffic. (I’ve said this before: Look at what San Antonio has done with a glorified ditch in Texas; we have a real river and a bay.)
• Effective and collaborative arts and entertainment advertising. Lowry Park, MOSI and the Aquarium pioneered this years ago. Can’t we all do more along these lines?
• An outreach program to the thousands of new urban pioneers moving into the downtown core.
• A central ticketing site that would advertise and facilitate sales.
• A sense of place… even when you get to downtown Tampa, there’s no sense that you’ve arrived. A continuous banner program, striking and effective wayfaring signs, public art – all those would mark downtown as a destination, not just an exit off the interstate with some tall buildings.
• A real advertising and branding campaign. This is a hard thing even in one company, and we have hundreds of stakeholders. But we have treasures downtown and an inexpensive, but a comprehensive, branding campaign would help patrons discover them – both those that exist, and those on the way.

This stuff is nothing new. Kilgore and others have been saying it for years, if not decades. And in fact, I thought the Tampa Downtown Partnership was created to do these things. But they don’t. Like most organizations, they preach to the choir, dismiss almost all constructive criticism, and vehemently defend any negatives.

The intro in the newsletter reads as if Kilgore is saying that “downtown is a success!” And it is, but he pointed out that their marketing efforts suck wind, and all but begged them to change a few things. That part is completely ignored by the TDP newsletter, and will be completely ignored by the Tampa Downtown Partnership.

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