2nd weekend of voting brings big crowds

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Huge crowds filled Grand Rapids all day Saturday, packing the streets for the last day of the first round of ArtPrize voting.  

ArtPrize officials attribute the larger than usual crowds to the beautiful day, combined with the last day of voting being on a Saturday as opposed to a Wednesday like it was last year.

Looking down on the swarm of people at the B.O.B. from atop a parking structure Saturday afternoon, the question of whether it was worth it definitely crossed some minds.  

But it wasn't a question at all for Ralph Pruitt and his two sons, Ralph and Raphael.  

"Yes, it's definitely worth it," said Pruitt.

Their fourth trip to ArtPrize was on one of the busiest days.

"It's really putting us on the map, you know, it's really putting us on the map.  [We] just have to deal with it and fit in with everybody else," said Pruitt.  "[We] enjoy ourselves and have a good time."

"With vitality comes a whole bunch of other things," said ArtPrize Director of Public Relations, Brian Burch.  "Urban vitality means people, and with more people comes more traffic, and with more traffic comes slower commute times, things like that, I think those are good problems to have to be perfectly honest."

More people voted in this year's first round of voting than did all of last year.   Burch pointed to the ease of registration, longer first round voting period and the ArtPrize apps on smart phones as contributing the bump in numbers.  More than ten thousand more people also registered to vote this year.  

"It has a lot to do with the engagement of the pieces," said Burch.   "If you look around there are pieces that are really looking at the audience and making the audience a really important part of that art installation."

Burch also promised that although they had problems with traffic on the website last year, the technology will not fail them this year.

"The apps aren't crashing this year," Said Burch.  "We've had a technology challenge every year, but this year we actually planned for 350,000 people to come downtown and participate and so far everything's working as it should and were really thrilled about that."  

The ArtPrize top ten will be announced Sunday afternoon.