My friend Bill Couch pointed me to this story by Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell. Bill also works at said newspaper, so if he points to an article, I tend to pay attention
No style, no brains, but oh, our pizza . . . -- OrlandoSentinel.com
No. 1 for family vacations and top 10 for our weather, pizza and barbecue.
But after that, things got ugly.
O-Town was either near the bottom -- sometimes even dead-last -- when it came to everything from our museums and art galleries to our classical music and "underground arts scene."
But forget underground. They don't like what's above-ground either. Visitors panned our architecture, historical sites -- even our skyline. And Buddy Dyer has spent a lot of money on that skyline. Other people's money, but money nonetheless.
They don't like our farmer's markets, our jewelry shops or our antiques offerings.
In every one of those above-mentioned categories, Orlando ranked 21st-25th.
Here's my comment:
Oh Scott, they don't know us so well. Underground art? We've got loads. Pizza? Where did they get that notion? Thanks for saying "Buddy spent a lot of money" and working for the Sentinel in the same breath. That takes guts.
One reason why people don't think we have good art and music is because they seldom get out and support it. We have enough population to support several art scenes, but no motivation. There are some efforts, like those Creative Village Wierdoes, Apartment E, Assembly Art Party, the Florida Creatives and other gatherings of geeks and freaks like Pandora's Box and the like all over the city, but it feels like a very small echo chamber. We promote our own stuff to the same people over and over again, and when they don't show up because they've been hit over the head with it, I'm not surprised.
The biggest problem I see is
The biggest problem I see is that we do tend to market to the same crowd over and over, and we complain about the response. The other is that locals are downtown and know about the history, to the rest of the world Disney and I-Drive are considered Orlando. The culture is here but no one has really opened the door to the masses yet.
We are promoting Rock For Hunger, going on all day this Saturday at Backbooth. Ask 100 college students where Backbooth is and they have no clue. This is an indie music haven and goes largely unnoticed by everyone that isn't in the know.
It is up to us to get the culture out there. Oh, and our pizza aint all that great!
Barbecue, what the hell? That
Barbecue, what the hell? That should immediately toss out half the responses. Not much of a skyline from the airport to Disney, what rating could you expect.
But it underscores difference between the tourist Orlando and the real Orlando. Every other city on that list, the tourist attraction is the heart of the city. For us it is on the southwestern edge of Orange County. OC even has a downtown Orange County campaign centered on I-Drive. If that was your experience of Orlando, sold as Orlando, think of what you would rate Orlando. Most of those fat people they saw don't live here, they were tourist too.
NY, Philly, Austin, Denver. Pick any one and if you were to suggest to their tourism boards that they should build an attraction 30 miles out of the city that would take more than 80% of the tourist out of the city you would find yourself in a world of hurt. Laughed and physically threatened.
I just spent a few days up north with people I would have figured to be smarter than the average responder on that survey and the only thing they wanted to hear were house of the mouse stories. I haven't even been in eight years and that was for work. But that is what the vision of Orlando is to most outside.
I would argue that we should not work to advertise your list of O-Town goodness to the assclowns coming to drop 5 G on a cramped hotel room and chinese made chotchkes. Most are British (of the chav sort) and don't really care.
I would rather have it be the best unknown city. Cultivate our own brand that you have to really commit to life here to get. Not plane fare and festival ticket. I am not bent on the indie or die thing but let them (tourist) have I-Drive and start bust the balls of residents for not getting out more in our part of Orlando.