Is Winnipeg boring after dark?

I think that we have a vibrant nightlife downtown throughout the year.

I think that Winnipegger's opinion of downtown could improve because we have lots of great things going on.

And I would describe it as vibrant.

So a lot of people wouldn't describe it as vibrant.

You know, you do hear a lot of people saying, well, I'm not going downtown.

Why would I go there? What do you think is key to changing that perception for those that don't agree with you, Kurt?

I think that you have to really make all the events accessible.

That's something that we do lots with Nuit Blanche.

Accessible in the way that they actually access the event, having good transport, having a clear indication what the event is like.

And also, we program events to a multi-demographic.

So we have stuff for kids, we have stuff for young adults, we have stuff for seniors.

And I think just kind of like that multi-faceted approach will get people down to it.

Why do you think the stigma persists that the downtown is maybe, you know, fine for events, but not for just a regular night out downtown that they wouldn't choose it?

I feel the stigma exists because there's many people that don't live in downtown Winnipeg and view it as kind of a dead space that you just go there for work or you just go there for one certain thing and they don't spend a lot of time down there.

And I think that's been the perception for years in Winnipeg.

Our hope with Moulin Rouge is to invite those people down, that they see downtown through a Creative lens, what works for us is arts and cultural events.

That's what we do.

The more people there are downtown, the more safer they are.

Literally, our incident reports go down with a larger crowd.

Like, everything works much smoother when there's down there.

You know, when you invite these different community groups, like we work with lots of community groups, not just private sector, not just ticket events.

In fact, no ticket events.

And you get all of their social media.

You get all of their volunteers.

You get all of their newsletters that are part of Nuit Blanche.