A little survey on limos…

[Duckitude]

Hi: As many of you know, I started up a small art gallery in August and have participated in the Art Walk since then. In fact, our opening was on an Art Walk night, August 13, 2009.

However, we are distant from most of the other more accessible Art Walk sites, and, thus (unless you believe we just don’t have anything worth seeing), have a little trouble generating many visitors on the Art Walk night (some, but not many).

So, do you think it would be fun (or appropriate) or effective for us to run a shuttle limo from the business district to Sterling Images Gallery and the Kenney for three hours on Art Walk night so that folks can just ride on down, visit, and get shuttled back?

Any local limo service we can use? We would like to give business to a local business.

Let me know. Thanks, Ron

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[KBear]

That would be a great service! Maybe some of the other outlying venues would be interested in participating, too.

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[WSB]

Ducky, would you provide that as a free service or would there be a (ostensibly nominal) charge for riders?

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[Wednesday]

Carey Limousine in South Park 206-762-3517

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[flowerpetal]

That is a generous offer. The Frye Museum tried this from Pioneer Square to their museum. I am pretty sure they have quit doing that now; and they are not in the business of selling art exept in the gift shop. I would imagine this to be cost prohibitive. Buyers of art usually visit a gallery more than once before making a purchase. You could easily rack up hundreds of dollars in limo expenses in one night. I think many people would ride just for the experience. I think potential customers would be happy with an inexpensive glass of wine and some noshes. Good luck!

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[miws]

Maybe you could work out a deal with the Ride the Duck people. ;-)

Mike

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[Duckitude]

No Ride the Duck people… please… fun, but noisy and way ugly vehicles… likely unheated even. Cute idea though.

As for the hundreds of bucks, actually, not that expensive for three hours. When you are selling art priced in the thousands of dollars (well, not all of it), it is not prohibitive to invest in your artists (that’s my philosophy on representing my artists).

The point, of course, is to get people started in the right direction. If they come back on their own later, cool. We are open Thursdays and Sundays 4-8 p.m. and by appointment and will be expanding our hours soon. Gots lots of ducky, and fine art Valentine’s cards and great art by three other artists besides myself.

See our new line of greeting cards using high resolution photographs of the Chagall ceiling fresco in the older Paris Opera House at http://www.SterlingImages.us

WSB: No nominal fee. All on us with stops at Kenney (unless they don’t want us to ask the driver to do that). We have the resources to make it fun to come on down to Sterling Images Gallery and hang out and talk about art, levity, hey, maybe even a quick consult with our head doc, me. (Head doc…. kind of play on words, so to speak…)

Laters. Keep that ducky feeling. (No I am not in a manic phase, so there!)

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[celeste17]

You could call it the Duckie Mobile or Duckie Limo. Maybe you could work a deal with the Limo company for advertising.

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[Duckitude]

Your Duckiness is showing…

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[celeste17]

blushes with the praise of being called a duck. And proud of it. Ducks are my friend they know that they can rest at my house until they can get a ride to the beach to the Duckie Reserve.

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[Kevin]

Ron,

Here is an idea for you. Rent a school bus from Laidlaw or First Student. Those buses can usually haul 40 – 50 folks. School bus rentals are a lot cheaper and much more efficient than a limo.

Now, carry this a step further and do two things. Use the buses BOTH ways – to haul WS folks to downtown, and then use the same buses to entice downtown folks to come to the West Seattle Art Walk venues. Non stop bus service from WS to downtown and downtown to WS.

Cover the cost of the bus service from a small “fare”, sponsorship from local businesses, and advertising in the form of “flyers” or program guides that would be presented to riders as they board the bus. Actually a double whammy if interest could be generated from downtown studios knowing that bus loads of WS folks would be dropped off right at their door stops.

No worries about parking or consuming too much wine and cheese :) The buses could follow a set route so if for example you wanted to hit a number of downtown galleries you could hop on and hop off at various stops along the route.

Grayline has a rather successful double decker bus they run during the summer months where you buy one ticket and then are allowed to hop on and hop off as long as you want while the bus runs a circular route around the downtown area.

Just think, when was the last time you rode a school bus? They use school buses in Leavenworth each year to shuttle the Snow Train passengers from the railroad siding just out of town into the downtown area. The tour guides describe the short ride as “kind of nostalgic.”

Speaking of tour guides, you could have a tour guide on each bus to call out each stop and also describe the venues to be found at each stop. Also pitching WS and different restaurants, shopping, Farmers Market, etc to encourage future visits. Some folks never come to WS until they move over here. Such was the case with me a decade ago.

Perhaps I should not be putting these ideas out in a public forum… This really is a great opportunity to put WS on the map as being the FIRST in the city to run an “art bus” on Art Walk nights.

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[Duckitude]

Kevin: So many great dreams… so little time. I think I will start small, like a little limo pilot program, and then think or advocate for something a little bigger.

Now about getting people to move to West Seattle… are you sure? Heehee… just kidding (sort of…)

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