This downtown Minneapolis event series costs $750K. Why is attendance low?

Tens of thousands of people descended upon downtown Minneapolis over recent weekends for the Olympic gymnastics trials, Pride, Taste of Minnesota and more. But crowds were mostly absent from a stretch of N 1st Avenue that is closed every weekend evening for Warehouse District Live.

Around midnight on a recent Saturday, the area of 1st Avenue N. between 5th and 6th streets that is closed to traffic was quiet aside from a mom and child who shot hoops at an electric basketball game and a handful of people who waited at a Mexican food truck. A DJ played to an empty dance floor. Minneapolis City Council Member Michael Rainville, who spearheaded the event last summer, walked the streets alongside a police officer.

But despite the serene scene and some social media grumblings about low attendance at the late-night downtown Minneapolis event with food trucks, public restrooms, police, music and places to sit, organizers say it has successfully met its objective — curbing crime downtown.

Each Friday and Saturday evening through Halloween weekend, the pedestrian zone is filled with places to eat, play and sit for people enjoying nightlife. The event runs from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m., though it will soon start later at 9 p.m. to match when many people begin to go downtown. The space is generally busiest between 11 p.m. or midnight and 2 a.m., said Adam Duininck, president and CEO of the Downtown Council.

The pedestrian zone is a public safety initiative with a festive atmosphere and resources for people who are already out enjoying downtown nightlife, attending a sports game or going for a drink after a show at First Avenue, Duininck said.

"We are trying to always fine-tune the activities, the games, the fun aspects of what's happening to make it more marketable. But the purpose of the program itself isn't to draw people. It's actually just to be another place along 1st Avenue for people to move through and, frankly, have some resources they can't get elsewhere," Duininck said.

Event organizers are not tracking the specific number of people who visit or pass through the area on Fridays and Saturday nights. Instead, they shared Placer.ai cellphone traffic data for the overall downtown entertainment district — the theater and warehouse districts and the North Loop — which showed 1.6 million visits in 2023, a 70% increase in visitors over 2021 that is on par with the 2019 pre-pandemic figure.

The Minneapolis City Council approved the funding proposal for the series of events in March. The council authorized a contract sponsorship of $750,000 for Warehouse District Live, in partnership with the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District, which operates the event.

Program costs for the block of activities and broader neighborhood outreach total $28,700 per weekend, which includes onsite labor, picnic tables, security, entertainment, street barricades and public restrooms.

In addition to Minneapolis police, street outreach workers, traffic control agents and hospitality and event staff walk the area to offer resources.

When the program began, the area saw a significant number of shootings and violent crimes, Duininck said. Officials thought that having a safe space where people can have fun instead of an empty space where bad things might happen could be a way to deter that kind of behavior, Duininck said.

Rainville said he believes the pedestrian-centered area has cut down on violence.

Many violent crime measures are flat citywide compared to last year, and similar trends are found in downtown west. The biggest change is in auto thefts, which are down about a quarter compared to last year.

The highest attendance at the event coincides with the largest weekends downtown: a Taylor Swift concert and Pride in 2023; and the Prince Celebration Block Party, Pride and the Olympic gymnastics trials in late June this year. On the busiest weekends, they are able to close two blocks to help match the potential demand, Duininck said.

They make edits on hours as they go on, such as pushing the start time later. They've grown from one food truck last summer to several this year.

The Warehouse District Live series has drawn some unfavorable comparisons to other events that close city streets, such as the popular Open Streets events, the contract of which the city ended in 2023.

Those events have the objective of bringing as many people out and together as possible, while the objective of the Warehouse District program is to be a safety resource, organizers said, one that helps change the narrative from the last couple of years that downtown is not a safe place to be.

"The metrics we're really trying to measure are likely to be safety metrics, not so much attendance. … Is the crime staying low? Are assaults down?" Duininck said.

Other Minneapolis areas are taking note of the program. A similar concept is coming to Dinkytown to enhance entertainment and public safety during the weekend for college students. Quincy Street in northeast Minneapolis and Lake Street could be next.

Right now, it's up to entertainment and hospitality to bring the city back, Rainville said.

"It's going to take a long time for us to build more residential, and the conversion of offices into residential is dead in the water because of the interest rates and then just the sheer cost of construction," he said. "We're not going to see these offices back to capacity in the near future either. … That's why Warehouse District Live is so important."