45,000 People Turned Out to Yesterday’s PAC Gig

You can read the full release for yourself after the jump. But the Performing Arts Center folks are guessing 45,000 people showed up yesterday, raising the DMN‘s published number of 25,000. Of course, no one really knows, which is why I’m officially putting the number at 500,000.

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Willard Spiegelman Finds a City in the Arts District

I ran into the good professor Spiegelman yesterday in the Arts District. He was just leaving a performance at the DSO and was aglow (as always). His observations on the day:

The gorgeous weather cooperated with various artistic enterprises at the giant civic open house yesterday at the AT&T Performing Arts Center. There must have been tens of thousands of people spilling in and out of all the Arts District’s venues. It was a carnival atmosphere. No — even better — it was a great manifestation of democracy in action. Walt Whitman would have felt at home. People lined up in front of the Wyly and waited patiently for an hour (or more?) for their chance to take a 10-minute tour. Kids frolicked in the little water element in front of the Winspear. At Booker T, students performed for friends and families. The DSO gave a brilliant and moving interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth. I couldn’t even get into the Nasher.

For the first time in almost 40 years of living in Dallas, I finally had the sense that I was living in a CITY instead of a vast sprawling network of suburbs. I doubt that there have ever been so many people gathered together here for something that was neither a rock concert nor a sports event.

A good time, as I believe the old cliche has it, was had by all. Certainly by me. But it’s a good thing I didn’t have to find a bathroom anywhere, or some food. I heard of difficulties in those two departments.