A Friday Night in Hamilton

It's the second Friday of the month, and this means Art Crawl on James Street North.

The February Art Crawl tends to be the smallest each year. It's usually the coldest of the 12, there are few outdoor vendors, and the weather is unpredictable.

The February 2017 Art Crawl will be remembered as the smallest, by the few of us who were there.

The crowd - if you can even call it that - in the Mulberry Cafe was smaller than a typical Friday night at 9:15pm. There were plenty of seats available, including two empty tables with electrical outlets.

There were also seats available at the various restaurants along James.

The cause? The Arkells, who were playing their first headline sell-out performance at Copps Coliseum. With 10,000 fans, and seemingly every Art Crawler under the age of 30, the difference was not just noticeable, it was everywhere in the Downtown Core.

Prior to the show, the difficulty in finding a place to eat - even fast food - rivaled the busiest times of Supercrawl. I saw one friend joked on Twitter that he might have to drive to Brantford to find a table to eat.

There was something about Art Crawl without the younger crowd, it felt empty and not at all exciting. While they don't have the deep pockets to purchase gallery pieces, they are absolutely essential to creating the vibrancy of street life and crowd that draws an older audience who are able to buy gallery art.

I enjoyed the quiet walk on James Street with fresh snow tonight, the temperature just below freezing with no noticeable wind.

Then an evening inside reading, and finishing it all off by writing this post.

Good night readers, thank you for reading.