27-04-2025
First-of-the-month street party returns to downtown Fresno. But is it ArtHop?
Fabio Linares saw the end coming.
As a vintage clothing retailer, he saw up close the rapid growth — and eventual implosion — of downtown Fresno's art gallery open house as it evolved into a full-blown street party.
It was the driving force that allowed him to move his shop, Bad Kids Club, into an actual retail space. The business, which started as a pop-up on the street outside the Warnor's Theatre complex moved inside the Mammoth Mall on Fulton Street mostly thanks to the community of people who came out on the first Thursday of each month to celebrate what had become colloquially known as ArtHop.
'I saw it blow up,' Linares says. 'I saw it like a forest fire.'
He remembers telling people it wasn't going to last. And it didn't.
In July, the city announced its intent to regulate the event over concerns of safety and the trash left by up to 15,000 mostly younger people who flooded the stretch of Fulton from Mono Street to Tuolumne.
It forced vendors (and musicians, performers and crowds) off of the streets and set up an alternative event for them on the third Wednesday of each month. It was felt by many as the end of ArtHop, which had been operating at venues across downtown for almost 30 years.
Now, the city is rethinking that decision and looking to bring a large-scale permitted street event back to downtown at the top of each month.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer threw his support behind the idea at the State of Downtown event.
'Wouldn't it be amazing to bring back the street market portion of the ArtHop we all remember?' he asked, to applause from the crowd. 'We in the city are 100% committed to making that happen.'
The Downtown Fresno Partnership echoed those sentiments, though it left the door open for an event outside of ArtHop night, possibly on the first Friday of each month. It held a survey to judge public opinion on the two options, saying it was 'prepared to work tirelessly in support of this event on whichever day the community chooses.'
The choice, it said, is 'between either intentionally activating on ArtHop night, or bringing life to downtown on a different night.'
Results of the survey are expected sometime next week.
Prior to the city stepping in, all of the various events happening on the first Thursdays each month were collectively known as 'ArtHop,' whether they were officially sanctioned as such or not.
That included events in the Brewery District, which were centered around food trucks and produced by Tioga-Sequoia Brewing Company and Fresno Street Eats. It also included dozens of smaller official ArtHop events happening inside downtown art galleries and studios and under under the purview of the Fresno Arts Council.
There are currently 35 active ArtHop venues across downtown and they continue to operate in much the same fashion as when the event started in 1996, says Lilia Gonzales Chavez, Executive Director of the Fresno Arts Council.
So, there was major confusion when the city halted the street event, she says, 'because ArtHop never left.'
'ArtHop hasn't died,' she adds. 'It took a hit because people were misinformed.'
And it hasn't been alone in the struggle.
For years, the first Thursday had been the busiest night of the month for businesses in the area. Some were able to make an entire month's rent off that single night. The city's alternative event, Why Not Wednesdays, cost money to produce and failed to recoup anything close to that kind of community support.
Since August, businesses in the Brewery District have collectively lost anywhere from $40,000 to $50,000 a month, says Mike Cruz, president of Tioga-Sequoia Brewing Company.
'That's just on our block,' he says.
'We're all hurting, wanting that day back.'
And Tioga-Sequoia isn't waiting for the city or the Downtown Fresno Partnership.
It just announced the return of its first Thursday Block Party for May. The event, done in conjunction with Fresno Street Eats, will have food and vendors, art and live music and be like 'a rewind to a year ago in May,' Cruz says.
Similarly, there are art galleries on the northern part of Van Ness Avenue working to coordinate other first-Thursday events. This is what should be happening, Chavez says.
There was some interesting, creative work being done by young people as the first Thursday event grew along Fulton Street post pandemic, she says, pointing out the impromptu alley gatherings that popped up behind Broadway Studios.
'That was exciting,' she says, and very much in the spirit of the original ArtHop and its larger goal as part of the Arts Council.
'We led the charge and demonstrated that it was possible,' she says.
Chavez welcomes the idea of a large-scale street event in downtown. She doesn't think it needs to be on the first Thursdays.
'It isn't consistent with the hop,' part of ArtHop, she says.
'It was intended that people would move from one gallery space to another, from one part of downtown to another.'
For his part, Linares publicly supported Why Not Wednesday and took to social media last week to answer questions about the possible return to Thursday night. He says regulating the event did allow the city to look at, and address, some real issues that came with having massive crowds downtown.
The formula was there.
'The problem is: The community wasn't for it,' he says.
'It's just not on the day the people want.'
So, he will support whatever this new first Thursday event becomes, if the city allows it and its has strong community support. Because while ArtHop has different meanings to different people, the underlying tie is the idea of having a vibrant downtown.
Much of this is about who controls the marketing. He likens it to the NFL's control over its biggest game of the year.
'If you're a bar owner, the NFL doesn't want you to have a Super Bowl party,' he says.
'But they want you to party for the Super Bowl.'
