Words can not express how bad Glow at the Santa Monica Pier was last night. It is mind boggling that in a city that has so much artistic talent the organizers of Glow were unable to find any. The whole event was a sham … just awful. The premise was great but whoever curated this event should go back to their day job at the checkout counter of the 99 cent store. All the artists had a chance to do something great and blew it, showing and executing nothing that inspired the audience to do anything but walk home asap. Hopefully the city will support an event like this next year … as it is a great concept and the city was very supportive of it. It would be an awesome event if the curator rose to the occasion and gave the city and the people something to be proud of rather than the joke that they did this year.
You can read more scathing reviews at LAist
The award for the best GLOW of the night went to this guy who was really nice and let me take his picture.
there were many great things said and written about “glow” before the event actually took place – reviews, articles, hear-say, news, etc.. i myself reading and hearing about the many great things to expect started telling friends and people i’ve just met – what a great event this should be especially with a concept like this. my wife and i parked on 17th + wilshire and gladly walked over a mile towards the pier. once we entered we experienced an ocean of people – the vibe was actually pretty calm and peaceful even though there were thousands of people going to the same area. we walked around – hung out near the music for a little while… walked into the beach and watched the water mist visuals installation for awhile and then started looking for more art but found barely anything worth jaw dropping not even a “wow” or “how did they do that”… quite a few times we said out loud about how there was barely any cool visuals or artwork or installations we read about prior to and had many other people agree and say the exact same thing. we were very dissappointed along with i’m sure thousands of other people that went to “glow” to really enjoy and experience a fantasy land in santa monica that would leave them breathless and in awe. but what we got was was tired legs, aching feet, a hungry stomach and a wish that the organizers and curators take more time to really get more great artists from the city of angels to transform this event into what glow should have been. glow was a dud – too much hype and not enough art.
-barrio youth
echo park los angeles
> “All the artists had a chance to do something great and blew it, showing and executing nothing”
The thing about art is that it’s a free market. If you think you can do better, there’s no one stopping you.
Fredo, not to be cruel about it but I have no pretension of being a curator and I can assure you I could have done a better job. There are enough talented people in Los Angeles that if they were given half a chance could have created something that was a statement of how amazing the art scene is in LA. Is IS, but sadly the curators of GLOW did not take what was presented to them and run with it. Apathy is saddening, and GLOW as realized this year was apathetic. They had 30k people and a city that were supporting them and they did not deliver. More than anything it is a sad thing these people did not let our city shine as much as I know it can.
GLOW – what I wish we were doing when we and 30 other thousand people ended up wasting our times and effort on.
OH wait, we were at Glow – a complete f***ing disaster. No offense, but that was nothing more than an exercise in how NOT to run an event. I’d rather have been at an IT conference in omaha.
There’s at least hot chicks in Omaha who drink too much and like to take their tops off. Sheesh. I’m glad I missed GLOW!
[…] first Glow in 2008 had over 200,000 attendees, but the event was widely panned as not very interesting and horribly organized. The concept of a city-sponsored all night long art […]