As the editor of a blog about convention cities called MeetingSource, I used to attend one or two conventions every year. One of my most memorable times was at dinner afterwards.
It was at a Hungarian restaurant in one of Pittsburgh’s less populated neighborhoods. The restaurant, Jozsa’s Corner, has since closed. Even when it was open, it resembled a rusted old apartment house. No matter, the experience was all about Jozsa, the owner, chef, maître d' and waiter.
That night, it turned out that a group our size had to share a table with another group. This was fine, enjoyable, in fact, in that I started talking to someone who told me about his experiences in a college in Iowa that I’d just started researching for my daughter.
There was a piano behind our table and when I asked if it could be played, Jozsa came out and offered to dance. His confession was that this was one of the reasons he installed the piano – perhaps, even started the restaurant, and it was heartwarming to hear.
Before the night ended, we got to watch his jig, and I got to play the piano. All my senses were engaged for a memorable event.
The city of Minneapolis is another place that hopes to offer this type of magic to convention attendees.
The head of the convention bureau for Minneapolis, Melvin Tennant, CAE, said this much at a summer preview event I was invited to.
“Attendees want an authentic experience when they visit,” he said.
This also means mixing with the locals. There are suburbanites who don’t necessarily work in the city, but who in the recent past filled the streets for sports, theater, music or otherwise, just go out and some of them are still missing, many say, due to COVID and other safety concerns.
“They are some of the toughest critics,” Tennant added.
To help rebuild the critical mass downtown, a coalition of city organizations that includes the convention bureau is promoting a raft of fun events downtown this summer. Events include many music, theater, and sports offerings, of course, but also sidewalk art events and farmers markets. Most interesting to me is a string of sidewalk pianos with preset times for professional entertainers, but at most other times, anyone like me can play during the month of June.
Turning the streets into a virtual amusement park is something new for me. As a kid living in the suburbs of New Jersey in the 70s, we did not visit New York City for fun. My grandfather had a doctor’s office in Brooklyn below his apartment, and if I was dropped off there because my mom was desperate for a babysitter, I wasn’t allowed to leave. He would remove the channel changer on the television, and I was forced to watch several hours of Wild Kingdom in slow motion. As a family, we’d visit Gooder’s shoes, owned by Mr. Gooder, a friend of my grandfather, for free shoes. There was a butcher we’d also visit who decapitated chickens in the store and left the heads in a barrel for all to see. It was not the fun place it is today.
On the corner of S Washington Avenue to the side of the just opened, glimmering Four Seasons Hotel - the only five-star facility in the state - is the first outdoor piano on Nicolette Avenue I encountered. I stopped to play.
Further up, a group gathered to watch a giant chess board on the sidewalk. They were a multi-cultural mix of well-dressed and not so well dressed who seemed seriously into the watching the game. Behind them are the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District (Mpls DID) offices whose mission is to supplement private business's efforts with an army of DID Ambassadors, the most visible part of their programs.
I befriend a DID ambassador who told me things are picking up downtown, especially because of the conventions. I asked about safety, and he said the weekdays seem fine, but weekends are still a challenge.
I slid off my bike and crossed the street to a hot dog vendor whose cart is open Monday through Friday and sometimes, weekends. He says his sales are the best when conventions are around.
The number of people hanging out started to increase the further up Nicolette I traveled. Across the street from The Mary Tyler Moore Statue on 7th and then up two blocks from there, across the street from the Target, there were crowds of about fifty people. When rush hour started, the number of people hanging out were matched by workers heading home with their briefcases or backpack slung over their shoulders.
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| Nicollet Ave At Night - Courtesy AdobeStock |
It was nice to see every seat outdoors taken at the popular watering hole The Local, and there's a new place, Ties Lounge and Rooftop, with multiple floors.
I tried the piano in front of the YWCA. Two young professional women talking and chatting and using their phones look up. I realize the whole process of playing the piano and wondering if people are listening is somewhat addictive.
Into my second song, I start to notice the badges for the Conference on Mass Spectrometry which is going on all week and decide to head up to the main stage which would be the piano in front of the convention center. Up there, no one is using that piano; it’s free. Although I’m just an aspiring professional, I realize this is a big opportunity. I put on my game face and start pounding the keys with my right hand, jazz chords with my left, as the attendees stream out of the convention center.
I get a few furtive looks, but one or two outright smiles as people walk by. A few people sit on the benches nearby and check their phones, and one sits right behind me and claps.
He called the conference the Super Bowl event for the spectrometry industry which studies the interactions between light and matter, and he is visibly excited by its success. I bring up the city’s presentation as a destination, and he couldn’t be more complimentary.
I return to the piano and play Billie Holiday’s version of “Good Bless The Child”. A guy walks by and points at me and says, “that’s good,” and I stop to think that it’s very cool being downtown.