Balboa Park 2015: The world's tallest guitar? A rave in the park?

Crazy and serious ideas generated at a day long sPARKS session; cost no issue, at least for now

One group acts out its ideas fo rthe 2015 centennial of the Panama-California Exposition at the day-long sPARKS session in Balboa Park.

Fill Balboa Park's House of Hospitality ballroom with creative thinkers and you'll get some wild and crazy ideas to celebrate the centennial of the park's Panama-California Exposition in 2015.

For example:

  • The world's biggest electrical guitar with strings stretched from the top of the California Tower, 200 feet up.
  • Young ambassadors sent around the world with their counterparts brought here.
  • A surfer dude as "The San Diego Anime" launched into the comic world.
  • Souvenirs fashioned from trash.

All this and more came from seven "pods" of 70 dreamers, gathered by the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership Friday, to brainstorm ideas that will delight visitors and locals as well as generate permanent collaboration among the park's key 26 institutions. Another 50 people attended the preview and wrap-up sessions.

The charge, as voiced by event facilitator Alexis Dixon: "What could really happen to celebrate this park in a most magnificent way?"

Each pod filled out details of their "Big Idea" and, in some cases, acted out their concepts in the summary session.

Paige Simpson, the cultural partnership's interim director, said the ideas will be culled over the next few weeks from hundreds of Post-It slips, scribbles and notations on a map and then shared with the official centennial organization, the 2015 Balboa Park Celebration host committee.

Look for the details at the organization's website.

Here are some highlights by pod:

  1. Transforming the Balboa Park Experience: A monthly themed parade and a showcase competition.
  2. Engaging Our Next Generation: Set up an "Ambassador Exchange Program" under which each institution designates a young person to travel abroad to San Diego's sister cities or other countries' parks and invite a counterpart to come here.
  3. San Diego - the Innovative City: Invite international as well as local artists to build sculptures, permanent as well as temporary, that illustrate high-tech, math, science and engineering discoveries.
  4. Near & Far, Global & Local: Build 10 pavilions highlighting a local, regional and international themes. Introduce "The San Diego Anime" comic figure.
  5. Greening Balboa Park: Create "art keepsake" made from trash collected in the park.
  6. 365 Days of Music: Build the "world's largest electric guitar" with strings stretched from the 200-foot-tall California Tower.
  7. Wild Cards: Create "light murals" on park buildings depicting city and park history, local educational, corporate, cultural and sports institutions.; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: rmshowley; Facebook: SDUTshowley


