Is St. Petersburg off its trolley?

By BRYAN GILMER

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 10, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- When you think of January's Super Bowl XXXV, what comes to mind?

Concerts and carousing until dawn? Pep rallies and parades?

[Times photo] Visitors can ride the Looper trolley for free as part of the "Arts on the Ball'' event the day before Super Bowl XXXV at Raymond James Stadium.

Not in St. Petersburg, where marketing officials are offering football fans a glimpse of Jacqueline Kennedy's china, a ride on a pink trolley and a tour of the masterworks of Salvador Dali.

While Clearwater holds country and rock concerts and Tampa throws its famous Gasparilla bash in advance of the Jan. 28 NFL championship game at Raymond James Stadium, St. Petersburg is organizing "Arts on the Ball" as a companion event the day before the big game.

Just stop at the Florida Holocaust Museum, Florida International Museum, the Dali, The Pier Aquarium or Great Explorations the day before the Super Bowl, and you can get a free Arts on the Ball pass. Then you can ride the Looper trolley for free to the other museums, receiving a discount when you arrive.

"They should actually move that and have it at the same time as the game," Jay Meyer of Seminole said sarcastically Wednesday as he and two buddies enjoyed pints of beer at Midtown Sundries. "No one who is interested in the game will come."

For years, the city has been trying to shed its image as a magnet for the elderly and market itself as a young, vibrant, fun place to live.

And while Arts on the Ball would seem to run counter to that effort, city special events manager Jacqulyn Schuett said she hopes the program would show visitors that St. Petersburg is a city with more than its share of cultural resources.

"I think people might be pretty amazed at the variety of what's here," she said.

Arts on the Ball is the only event St. Petersburg has sought to officially affiliate with the Super Bowl. That doesn't mean residents and visitors to south Pinellas will have nothing else to do, however.

Tropicana Field could still host an official Super Bowl event, like a concert.

And private businesses, bars and concert halls are free to host whatever entertainment they like, even if they don't have the NFL's official stamp of approval.

Still, there was a brief silence, then explosive laughter, when a group of men sitting at a Central Avenue sidewalk table were told the art trolley would be the city's Super Bowl tie-in Wednesday afternoon.

"You can write, "met with derisive laughter,' " Bob Hancock, 53, of Sarasota told a reporter.

Then he got into a more artistic mood: "That's going to draw those football fans like a vast sucking tornado into the vortex of art."

Bob Ryals, 40, of Daytona Beach seemed willing to keep an open mind.

"Are they providing beer and peanuts on the trolley?" he asked. "I'm coming over to the arts. Forget the football."

When St. Petersburg hosted college basketball's Final Four in 1999, Tampa also played a limited role in trying to entertain fans or persuade them to keep their money in Hillsborough County.

But Tampa has Ybor City, a bustling entertainment destination. And, by necessity, several official Final Four events such as the coaches convention and an interactive entertainment venue were in Tampa. By chance, a huge country music concert also happened to be in Tampa that weekend.

With a smaller, more residential downtown, St. Petersburg has to work a little harder to attract and keep tourist dollars during a big sporting event like the Super Bowl.

And, officials insist, providing an alternative to drinking, dancing and debauchery is really a good idea.

"The Super Bowl is very much a corporate event," said Krista Soroka, director of special events for the Tampa Bay Super Bowl task force. "You think everybody is a football fan, but somebody's wife's coming who couldn't care less about the game. She'd rather come to the Florida International Museum than watch a bunch of pirates throw beads at Gasparilla."

Beverly Jackson, director of business development for Arvida Realty services, agreed as she sat within field-goal range of Jay Meyer's bar stool at Midtown Sundries Wednesday.

"There's a lot of wives that tag along with their husbands," she said. "They want to shop."

St. Petersburg Mayor David Fischer wasn't aware that the city had submitted Arts on the Ball as the official Super Bowl event. But he didn't think it was a bad idea.

"The only thing I can say is that people who are coming to the Super Bowl, that's something they may want to do," Fischer said. "The Final Four people certainly did."

Besides, Schuett said, Clearwater acted fast and cornered the market on pre-Super Bowl concerts.

She and other city officials decided the downtown waterfront was too obvious a way to capitalize on the 100,000 visitors predicted to stream into the Tampa Bay area, many of them filling the Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Hilton St. Petersburg.

The decision baffled Jeff Rubenstein of Tampa, who was visiting St. Petersburg Wednesday.

"Whose brainstorm was that?"

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