La Machine was an exercise in public trust

Creative approach paid off big-time, writes Jeff Leiper.

Wow. What can you say about La Machine that hasn’t already been Facebooked, Instagrammed, and tweeted 100,000 times over the weekend? For three days, Ottawans crammed into the downtown for a once-in-a-lifetime performance of theatre, engineering and music. No one who saw it will soon forget it.

Now that the crowds have gone, it’s a good time to look back on what worked, and how we can keep the momentum going. Besides the obvious logistics, the event’s success relied on countless big and small gambles.

Take, for instance, the “potato.” That’s what organizers called the moving perimeter of flimsy plastic ribbon that surrounded the machines as they went walkabout. The barrier was almost conceptual. How many debates and discussions among the various players took place before gambling that a piece of caution tape would suffice as crowd control?

The organizers trusted the crowds, and it worked spectacularly. People self-organized and devised their own ways of seeing the show based on what worked for them. No one told the audience exactly how to enjoy the show; the weekend was notable for its sense of discovery.

Many have also noted the non-commercial nature of the event. It was free. There were no vendors roaming with T-shirts for sale or food-truck lines. There were water-bottle filling stations and porta-potties and lost children volunteers, but the supporting visible infrastructure was minimal and limited to making sure visitors had access to some key services.

Of course, and this is where we begin looking forward, one of the most important decisions was to open the streets of downtown to people.

Not to belabour it, but the elimination of parking and cars from the ByWard Market and other key downtown streets was hugely successful, even applauded by many merchants. Many of us have said that fewer cars, not more, in our marquee destinations will draw more people and economic activity. Yes, La Machine was a one-off in terms of scale, but even during breaks in the performance, thousands milled around on closed streets. My hope is that we do it more often.

In a few years, light rail will extend deep into the west and east ends, complementing an extended and improved O-Train. Passengers coming from Orléans and Kanata and the south end will be able to disembark directly into the market. Our cycling networks are punching further and further afield, with connections slowly being made to knit the routes together.

Let’s give residents and tourists a reason to use those new transportation links to be part of beautiful experiences in the market and downtown. Less parking and fewer cars will be key to that. It will be relatively rare that we can attract 70,000 or 80,000 people at once to wander and shop, but we can certainly bring several thousand at a time once the transportation infrastructure will support it. We need bike lanes and parking, great transit, and safe pedestrian routes to capitalize on the opportunity we proved this weekend. Let’s do it.

Finally, it shouldn’t be lost on anyone the degree to which La Machine was an artistic performance that drew hundreds of thousands to the streets. From Long Ma’s expressive sculpting to the choreography to the lush score performed live by musicians who demonstrated herculean stamina, every aspect of the show was imbued with artistry. The lesson I hope we can draw from this is that any space can be a performance space, and that art in this city will find an audience.

A lot of trust was extended on the weekend: trust in residents, trust in our city’s professionals, trust in artists, and trust in visionaries. That trust was repaid many times over. As we look ahead to the continued transformation of this city, let’s not hesitate to trust each other to replicate this success again.

Let’s give residents and tourists a reason to use those new transportation links to be part of beautiful experiences in the market and downtown.