(Photo: Raylene Knutson)
It’s easy to complain about Nuit Blanche. After all, it’s free, and free occupies a strange place in the part our brains dedicated to the weighing of pleasure versus economic limitations. While one would think that the people who pay gala ticket prices to film festival offal should riot in the theatre, slash seats and take hostages, they generally don’t. That’s because they’ve paid money to be there; “free” gives us permission to do many things, one thing being to complain excessively at wan brunches the next day. As a survivor of the other side of Nuit Blanche—the geek in the cage side—I ask you to consider the following answers to common complaints.
The work wasn’t as described in the guide
Was your wedding just as you had described it? No, it wasn’t, was it? But imagine if you had to describe it, months before, in 100 words—in the same general language used for Busker Fest and Woofstock—for use in a guide that your guests would then carry around during your ceremony saying things like “This isn’t a ‘union of two souls’ at all. This shit blows.”
No, the work really wasn’t as described in the guide
Oh, you’re expecting Cirque du Soleil every ten feet? For Nuit Blanche, one small group of artists receive budgets the equivalent of a used Honda. All the other artists get a budget roughly the same as a poor high school’s production of Annie. To wit, you’re going to have to look at a stuffed dog playing Sandy and a cardboard bridge with Christmas lights wrapped around it every now and then. Clap politely, admire the spirit, and move on.
The lineups are too long
And landlords love to throw dramatic fits about capacity, insurance and liability ten minutes before start time, sometimes refusing to even unlock doors—just to get into the spirit of things. Think of your own landlord. How would he react to not only a party, but a party also with a hydraulic lift?
The art wasn’t up and running when I showed up
Maybe the artist was busy kicking rats away from chewing power lines in the infested warehouse he was stuck in for 16 hours.
We showed up at the end of the night and it was already shutting down
Maybe the artist had to dolly a half-ton of equipment across an acre of broken concrete by himself as none of his volunteers showed up for the final shift. They were probably at home already, writing blog posts about how Nuit Blanche sucks.
