LTC 278-2007 Sleepless Night Recap~ ~. s ~ u u
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OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER
No. z~s-ZOO7 LETTER TO COMMISSION
TO: Mayor Matti H. Bower and Members of the City Commission
FROM: Jorge M. Gonzalez, City Manage
DATE: December 11, 2007
SUBJECT: Sleepless Night Recap
As you know, on Saturday, November 3, 2007, Miami Beach hosted the inaugural edition of
SLEEPLESS NIGHT, an all-night, FREE, citywide celebration of the arts, presented by the City of
Miami Beach Tourism and Cultural Development (TCD) Department and the City's Cultural Arts
Council (CAC). The event was produced in-house by City staff as a result of the response from the
community in the 2005 and 2007 Community Satisfaction Surveys where residents identified a desire
for more cultural activities. SLEEPLESS NIGHT was also developed as a result of the Cultural Arts
Council's desire to create a signature, annual cultural event to celebrate Miami Beach's commitment
to the arts. With the opening of the Carnival Center, and the discontinuation of the annual "Invitation
to the Arts" season preview, the CAC felt it essential to present a new event that would focus the
cultural spotlight on Miami Beach.
The evening started off at Euclid Oval on Lincoln Road, where former Mayor Dermer, then-
Commissioner Bower, and Commissioners Steinberg and Gross presented the Key to the City to
Christophe Girard, Deputy Mayor in Charge of Culture for the City of Paris (and the originator of Nuit
Blanche, the annual all-night Parisian cultural festival upon which Sleepless Night was based,) as well
as cutting the signature hot pink ribbon to officially launch the cultural takeover of Miami Beach. By all
accounts, SLEEPLESS NIGHT was a tremendous success with over 100,000 people of all ages
enjoying 130 free arts and entertainment events scattered amongst 80 venues during the thirteen
hour event.
The Tourism and Cultural Development Department received countless congratulatory emails and
calls from the community. A sample list of comments is attached for your reference. One comment
I'd like to highlight is that of WLRN's Arts Beat host, Ed Bell, who said "It was the best, multi-genre
arts event I've ever enjoyed herein South Florida (in overthree decades.) Sleepless Night will prove
to be South Florida's premiere, annual arts extravaganza." With the help of Howard Miller
Communications, the City was able to obtain over 35 million media impressions for Sleepless Night.
This was accomplished by leveraging a small advertising budget with in-kind support from the event's
media sponsors. It is also important to note that hotel occupancy for Friday, November 2"d and
Saturday, November 3~d were at 78.9% and 85.3% respectively. November 3`d hotel occupancy
represented a 12.4% increase from thesame Saturday in 2006. By comparison, the rest of Miami-
Dade County had no change or a decrease in their occupancy when compared to 2006. Average
Daily Rate and Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) also had marked improvement over 2006
with 4% and 16.9% increases respectively for November ~d.
Sleepless Night will be back on November 1, 2008, with a dazzling new array of artists and
entertainers. Please feel free to contact me with any questions regarding this event.
C: Hilda M. Fernandez, Assistant City Manager
Max A. Sklar, Tourism and Cultural Development Director
Gary Farmer, Cultural Affairs Program Manager
Attachments
COMMENTS on SLEEPLESS NIGHT
"It was the best, multi-genre, arts event I've ever enjoyed here in South Florida (in over three decades).
Sleepless Night will prove to be South Florida's premiere, annual arts extravaganza."
-Ed Bell, Producer/Host, South Florida Arts Beat, WLRN Fm
"I would like to thank the City of Miami Beach for hosting Mr. Girard's visit on the occasion of "Sleepless
Night". It was a very enriching experience for him and he was very pleased with the event. Several articles
(attached herein) have been published in Paris regarding Miami's first "Nuit Blanche". In very read newspapers
like Liberation, Le Parisien, Le Journal du Dimanche, I'Agence France Presse. We are honored to have been a
part of Miami's first "Sleepless Night" in the United States and look foward to next year's edition."
-Ashok Adic~am, Cultural Attache - Head of Arts and Humanities, Consulat gcn~ral de France a Miami, Service
de cooperation et d'action culturelle
"I hope your giving yourself a few huge pats on the back for what the first sleepless night turned out to be... we
were thrilled, our event was wonderful, and so were the others which we stopped by!"
-Vanessa Menkes, Vice President, Communications, The Opium Group
"Congrats on an amazing tour de force. I was so happy to be able to work with you on this project."
-Octavio Campos, Artistic Director, CAMPOSITION HYBRID ~ THEATER ~ WORKS
"You did an amazing job..........Great"
-Marto Courtney, Managing Director, Goldman Properties
"You must be exhausted... but so proud. What a huge success. I was amazed at the crowds and the number of
children. Really a heartwarming experience."
-liana Vardy, Art Miami
"On behalf of myself and the entire Rock ensemble, I would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to
participate in the "sleepless night "event that took place at the Fillmore Miami Beach At The Jackie Gleason
Theater on Saturday night November 3rd. This wonderful opportunity inspired my students in the Rock
ensemble to work very hard in preparation for the concert. I was extremely proud of their performance. I have
not seen that much excitement from my students in a longtime."
-Doug Burris, Director of the Miami Beach Senior High School Rock Ensemble
"the whole thing, terrific."
- Michael Hughes, Associate Director for Development, The Wolfsonian-Florida International University
"Just wanted to share this with you all. MATILDA'S debut at the BASS MUSEUM of Art SLEEPLESS NIGHT I
had planned to perform for one 45 min show ..... The performance was 5 hours long. Fans waited in line all
around the Museum. It was an amazing sleepless night."
-Pablo Cano, artist
General comments:
"Congratulations on Sleepless Night - a superb community celebration."
"You pulled it off. It was brilliant.
"You and your Sleepless Night Team are to be congratulated! Sleepless Night was one of the most fantabulous
free events I have ever attended!!!!"
"Boo-hoo a whole year? That's fine, I believe all that I saw on Sat will hold me up till then!"
"The experience was magical and the feedback that I have been receiving from both residents and visitors alike
has been remarkable."
"Hope all is well. I wanted to thank you for everything you did forme and the store for the Sleepless Night Event.
received such great publicity throughout the entire weekend !! From the sidewalk banners to the press in all the
Newspapers, everything was so tastefully done. I cannot thank you enough and I look forward to working with
you and the City of Miami Beach in the near future."
"is this going to repeat? it was a amazing event!"
"I am seldom compelled to send out a congratulatory E-mail like I am today. Thanks to all persons and sponsors
that were involved on "The Sleepless Night" event. Congratulations toall involved, from the head planers to the
persons handling the crowds at the transportation stops. My family and I are looking forward to next year, I will
change to home page of my computer to the "Sleepless Night" countdown clock."
"WHAT A GREAT NIGHT IT WAS. YOU DID SOMETHING SO SPECIAL! I HOPE THIS BECOMES AYEARLY
EVENT"
"What a gem of an event! It was like being in NYC."
"Congrats on a GREAT event! Great Press... Great Entertainment... just simply... GREAT!!!"
"is this going to repeat? it was a amazing event!"
"Awesome event Max, we had a blast. "
"Congratulations... What a great night"
"We were packed for the first time in many months."
"I just wanted to say I really enjoyed the event! It was such a success I think."
"as a year round resident of South Beach I thank you for bringing to our city such an exciting event"
"Congratulations on the wonderful presentation of Sleepless Night."
"Congratulations, you did a great job. It was beautiful, everything went really well, thousands of very happy
people everywhere. "
"Congratulations on asuperbly conceived and executed Sleepless Nights. The energy and thoughtful planning
that went into it -the extraordinary attention to detail -was evident precisely in the fact that the behind-the-
scenes stuff didn't show. I was also impressed by the enthusiasm of the presenters, and their appreciation for
you personally. Bravo!"
"I really enjoyed the night.... this is a great idea, and I hope to see this back."
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