Over 1,500 arrived for Oak Cliff’s Bastille on Bishop Festival
Over 1,500 people arrived for Oak Cliff’s first Bastille Day celebration, far exceeding our highest planning projections three times over.
“I ran out of my first batch of crepe mix, hurried back to my shop and made another batch, and ran out of that as well…it was unbelievable”, said Samantha Rush of Rush Patisserie, whose small crepe stand had a regular line running down Seventh street’s sidewalk.
Eighteen tons of crushed granite was brought into the street to create petanque courts that people of all ages enjoyed playing.
A mussels competition between some of Dallas’ top area chefs went into three elimination rounds, with David Uygur winning the top award for the famous french dish.
At the end of the block, a french maid relay run by Indigo’s Tracey Popken, had guys and girls running through an obstacle course while gathering laundry, hopping through tires, and racing past vespas.
“We were blown away by the turnout” noted Matt Spillers of Eno’s, “all of the restaurants were having turn people away…we started running out of wine and mussels half way through….it far exceeded our expectations, which means next year, we’ll prepare for 2,000!”
More pictures available on the Go Oak Cliff flickr pool here.
It was an incredible turnout! Unfortunately, MANY neighbors, like myself, were unable to really enjoy themselves amongst the crowds and shortages of food and drink.
next year, i’d recommend really sprawling out rather than packing people into just one block. Furthermore, my group was STARVING and there just wasn’t enough street food. maybe more crepe stands and other street food vendors?
I do have to commend all of you guys for organizing such a fun event and I understand that NO ONE was expecting the crowds that showed up. I just wish I could’ve enjoyed it a bit more. It really hurt to feel like there was no room for me at my own community’s event.
Nevertheless, kudos for the successful draw!
PS
The bike ride over from Winnetka was glorious and I loved parking at the beautiful new trolley track rack!
Great event. Huge success. Friends I imported from the other side of the river for the evening were surprised, impressed, and entertained. No mussels or wine, but we got a table at Zen with no wait and had great noodles and sushi. It’s great that NOC can host events like this in a district with multiple options for eating/imbibing to handle overflow crowds. Can’t wait to see how the event improves next year.
Because we are old farts we got there early so we got glasses, t-shirts etc. Fantastic turn-out. Agree with Robbie it would be great if you could somehow get the restaurants to come up with topical snacks that can be served quickly and easily from a stall on the street at these events.
Mrs Sügna commented that she is worried that Bishop Arts is becoming a theme park. What do you think? Are these shindigs for the neighborhood or for the whole Metroplex? I know you are business people and want to make a profit but it would be awful if these things turned into 3,000 plus Greenville avenue type orgies…
I get the wonky angle vibe on the photos, but anything past 80º is way too much! I actually felt nauseous looking at the flickr set!
Angus makes a really good point… and I think its important to ask Jason and the Go Oak Cliff gang:
what is the purpose of these types of events?
Is it to draw people to the neighborhood willy nilly? or is it to draw the neighborhood itself out and create a sense of community amongst neighbors?
i think it becomes a thin and dangerous tightrope because I’m not sure regional draws like the Greenville Ave. parade really sustain longterm support for the local businesses on Greenville Ave. It brings people out to party, but doesn’t encourage folks to live locally.
I’d imagine that first and foremost, the focus should be on the local businesses and secondly on the raising of funds.
Brew Riot seemed to have achieved this delicate balance, where as this by comparison, seemed a bit chaotic.
Think Small, remember?
Good questions and comments, folks. I think we’re all learning as we go. Some Go Oak Cliff events will be smaller and more intimate, and hopefully others will showcase our wonderful neighborhood to a larger audience.
Our hope is that of the 1500 estimated attendees, a percentage were first time visitors to Oak Cliff and the Bishop Arts District… and we hope that they’ll come back another afternoon or evening for shopping, dining and enjoying the area.
We appreciate the feedback and will work to smooth out the rough edges of the Go Oak Cliff events… and continue to make Oak Cliff the most livable and enjoyable part of Dallas.
We had a couple of goals, but one that I really wanted to hit on was highlighting our history and connection with La Reunion. One thing that has always upset me about Dallas is its lack of having anything in its past to celebrate…we typically only talk about JFK, which is sad because there’s so much more. Celebrating and promoting your areas history creates a greater sense of place and builds more pride in a community IMHO.
I would say that this far exceeded our expectations, and judging by how fast we ran out of wine we were thinking small
Mais oui!
La Reunion with it’s Swiss/French connection would be a perfect tie in – I saw the La Reunion Arts group there.
If it is advertised as a “Buy a glass, drink wine free all night” you are going to attract a certain kind of crowd. Conversely if you mention things like sommeliers and petanque, cuisine. Ricard and the Latin Quarter etc etc you will, hopefully, attract another crowd.
This may sound like snobbery but what’s wrong with a bit of class & elan??? I would rather be identified with something that is interesting and original rather than some wine swilling ruckus. Not saying that was what it was – just imagining how it could evolve…
Hey! Great idea! Mime! Gangs of them! Marcel Marceau types! Aaargh!
Wasn’t able to make it to the event but I’ve heard from several lucky attendees it was the absolute most. Congratulations, guys, and thanks for creating these inspired touchpoints that bring us together.
I was so glad that I got there early…I even got a crepe AND got to play Petanque. I heard someone else say something about it feeling like “Lower Greenville”…to which I say “c’mon! This is the attention we’ve been after for years.”
Rarely do I get the Oak Cliff Oh any longer…folks mostly tell me that they’ve been to Hatties or Eno’s or Bolsa. And you know, the way to a North Dallasite’s heart is through their stomach.
I like the idea of adding another block to the shindig. Clearly, it was an overwhelming success. I’m not a big wine drinker, so I don’t know how big a draw the $10 bottomless glass is.
I guess I fall in the camp of “the more the merrier”…so invite the whole city. But please oh please keep putting on these events. If nothing else, they liven up Wednesday nights and the random weekend.
Mad props on a successful first Bastille on Bishop.
Thanks Jason and Rob!
I really don’t intend to be so critical about your efforts because I think we can all agree that you all have done wonders for developing the community. I think my emotions come as a result of surprise, maybe much in the same way you all were surprised.
at any rate, I like the comment about the events having a variety of audiences and we certainly do want more people to discover the area.
I envision next year’s event and can only see good things. Keep up the good work and thanks for listening to the feedback.
What an amazing event! Thank you all so much for putting this on. I’ve lived in Oak Cliff all of my life and brought our whole family off to show off our community. You really did this old grandma proud!
As for those being naysayers, don’t let them get you down and keep doing what you’re doing! I read the other two people on here who have already jumped to the conclusion that this will be a drunken orgy and they let their fear of a worst case scenario take over. We are not Greenville, we don’t have bars lining the street, and we weren’t celebrating a holiday that’s known for imbibing. Bastille is much more like our 4th of July (I’ve been to Paris for many Bastilles). Unfortunately, that fear is all too common for many people. DO NOT let that stop you from your wonderful work. There will always be naysayers. Look at Knox/Henderson as an example, where their neighborhood HOA shut down a planned DART rail station due to fear of a criminal element arriving. Now, they really missed the boat!
My 72 year old husband played petanque in the streets, my grandchildren made paper hats, and I swayed to french music in the air while the incredible smell of garlic and mussels wafted through the air and watched people smiling and laughing. It didn’t feel like Dallas, it felt like something exciting and real.
You did us proud!
When planning this event, I truly thought we’d be successful if we turned out 300 people. It’s mid-week, it’s summer, so people are on vacation, it’s hotter than you-know-where… The event benefited Alliance Francaise, which is a smaller organization. If you couple their small organization with our small community, you should have a nice party, right? But somewhere around 9 celebrity chefs and 18 tons of decomposed granite, we managed to make every media outlet’s radar. Before we knew it, there were articles written billing the wine walk as “All You Can Drink”- hardly the intent!
It’s always a hard sell to merchants and restaurants when you ask them to invest dollars into a first time event. How do they know that it’s going to be worth their investment of time and money to make a food stand, prepare the extra product, and so on if you have no historical data? So now we can safely say we have historical data! And, assuming the nay sayers are outnumbered by the lovers, we’ll plan for twice as many next year, and we will, indeed, expand beyond the 1 block enclosure.
Re: wine walks. Even the First Thursday wine walks have become a little bit of a wine blitz rather than a sip and shop. Hopefully, now that we have historical data, we can convince one or two wineries to participate next year, and cut back a little on the “bottomless” concept. It is intended to be small samples, not wine until you can’t see straight!
Re: profits- What profits? These aren’t commercial ventures. The expense of permitting, police, insurance, and portable toilets coupled with the expense of loading in 18 tons of decomposed granite (plus the labor to rake it and remove it again!), printing the glasses and t-shirts, propane for cooking, utensils and boats for serving, trash bins, paper towels…. Believe me, profitable we are not.
Where are the restaurants in Oak Cliff that the celebrity chefs are from? Addresses please. Lucia’s?
A fun event! I enjoyed myself. I’m proud of the organizers efforts.
Lucia will be opening at 408 W 8th Street sometime this fall. Chef Uygur is currently renovating the space! Supposed to be lovely, everyday Italian, done right, if I had to guess!
[...] photos, Texas | by photopolus MERCI Beaucoup to everyone who stopped by our photo booth at Bastille on Bishop! A très bon – good time was had by the close to 1500 (!!!) attendees and we can’t wait [...]
[...] hard to believe that it’s nearly been a week since the Bastille on Bishop celebration! Our friends at Photopol.us captured some really fun photographs during the event [...]