The executive director of BLINK says he's happy with this year's four-night art festival. Justin Brookhart says there were no major problems, and the drone show, the mapping of Music Hall, and the Flux installation in Covington were all big draws.
“Everything we planned to add to the experiences outside the artwork was well received,” he says. “Things like Asianati Night Market, our first fashion show for BLINK, our first skate park experience — all these other experiences outside the art worked super well for us.”
This was the first year for BLINK in Newport too.
"A lot of folks were in and around the Newport on the Levee development which is a place that a lot of families are used to going to already. So this kind of became a de facto family zone for a lot of folks.”
The festival began with a parade along Mehring Way Thursday night. It stalled out several times, leaving the audience wondering what was happening. Brookhart says bands, dance groups and other entries were performing, creating gaps.
"And people would use that as an opportunity to cross the street to go to the other side," he says. "Also when people saw the drone show was flying, some people wanted to make their way down to the park to see some of those things. So there was just intermittent gaps because of how many people were out attending the parade."
Brookhart says the Chamber could release attendance estimates later this week and economic impact estimates sometime after that. He says it felt to him like there were more people this year.
“Certainly, I know Sunday was more well attended than it was in years past. From what I saw and from what I heard from people, it felt like, you know, a lot of folks.”
Brookhart says BLINK got a lot of attention world-wide on social media, thanks in part to the international artists who presented. He says having a summit in Cincinnati by public art professionals, CODAworx, during BLINK didn't hurt either.
“The fact that they could have a conference during the day to talk about art and technology and place-making, and then all their attendees could go out at night and actually see it in practice — it was incredible.”
Brookhart says with 2024 over, it's time to revisit some of the ideas that didn't fit.
“The number one that’s on my list that I’m happy to tease a little bit is, we really wanted to light up Carew Tower this year. We had a great project in mind, and just time and the realities of production this year, didn’t allow us to do that,” he says. “That’s top of my list for things I want to try to solve for 2026. Just lighting up that building would be incredible for us. So, yeah, there’s no stoppage of ideas and inspiration for what next year could look like.”
The four-night multi-city art festival ended Sunday night. Brookhart says after taking everything down, the BLINK team will take a couple of days off, before starting 2026 planning in November.
