"Monongahela Monster" promotes the "Pittsburgh Roars" campaign. Click photo for larger image. More information Participating groups -- including some shops and restaurants, in addition to cultural spots -- will give discounts to those who purchase Pittsburgh Roars keychains ($10 for adults, $5 for children). More information: pittsburghroars.com.

The new "Pittsburgh Roars" promotional campaign is about a lot of things -- art, culture, giant inflatable animals -- but overall it is supposed to be an ongoing and movable party that promoters hope will last eight months or more.

The public face of the project is 10 inflatable creatures that, starting today, city visitors will see popping up outside cultural events. They debut this weekend at the Carnegie Museum of Art, alongside the museum's "Fierce Friends: Artists and Animals 1750-1900" exhibit, and will help promote other events throughout the year.

Similar to the 100 arty dinosaurs the Carnegie Museum of Natural History placed around the city three years ago, the inflatable creatures are meant to draw attention to the city's cultural scene, in all its vibrancy and eclecticism. They will appear at an array of art openings, exhibits, plays, dances and the other Roars-related events from more than 65 Pittsburgh-area cultural groups.

The key theme of the enterprise is fun. Promoters want people from outside the usual Pittsburgh arts scene -- and outside the city itself -- to join in the celebrations that occur at art openings and experience the city's deep well of cultural activities, often in unexpected places.

That is why Pittsburgh Roars' reach will extend to events such as a Pirates game and an emphasis is being placed on unusual things, such as an artist-designed miniature golf course at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, topiaries of mythical creatures at Phipps, and, of course, the inflatables.

"This is an effort promoting Pittsburgh rather than any particular venue," said Roars co-chairman Michael Watson, senior vice president of the Richard King Mellon Foundation. "We need to let people know Pittsburgh is having a party this summer, and everyone's invited,"

The "Pittsburgh Roars" idea grew out of promotional talks for "Fierce Friends," a major exhibition coordinated by the Carnegie and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Early advertising materials for the exhibit focused on a painting of a lion, leading to the "roars" theme.

Watson said the Mellon Foundation stepped in to fund a marketing campaign with an initial $750,000 gift but pushed for a tie-in with other arts events throughout the year.

Part of the reason for the collaborative campaign was economic reality -- there is not enough foundation and donor money to individually promote every arts event this year.

Funding for nonprofits is "very difficult, as all of us know. There are shrinking dollars," said the other Roars co-chair, Suzy Broadhurst, the chairwoman of the Carnegie Museums board of trustees and director of corporate giving for Eat'n Park.

The idea of Roars, she continued, was "instead of everybody spending their marketing dollars bringing their own little [audience] groups in, let's see if we can leverage that by bringing something big together."

To mark Roars events, the group approached Garfield's Sprout Fund, which specializes in community-based public art projects.

After considering a number of promotional ideas -- such as throwing a parade or temporarily wrapping buildings, a la the Bulgarian-born artist Christo -- it took a page from the advertising industry and invited local artists to come up with designs for "ideas that mean roar" using cold-air inflatables. (Advertisers often use these to publicize grand openings and special sales.)

A jury chose 10 works, including straight-ahead characters such as an elephant or a zombie, and more abstract ideas, such as a thought-bubble saying "Grrr!"

Sprout then contracted with a Cleveland firm to produce the works; the artists did not fabricate them. As the focus was on cartoonish objects, often by amateur artists, the campaign does not include work by the city's preeminent inflatable and animal-themed artist and sculptor, Tim Kaulen.

The hope, said Sprout's executive director Cathy Lewis, is that people will be attracted to the inflatables and then wonder where they will turn up next, perhaps following them to other Roars events around the area. (As for vandalism worries, the objects will be placed only in secure areas, such as museum roofs, or will be dismantled daily by a Sprout team.)

	"Houndstoothy the Squirrel" is one of the inflatables for "Pittsburgh Roars." Click photo for larger image.

"We wanted to create a new type of buzz and raise the programming profile for artists," she said. "We also wanted to do something outrageous, like putting a 30-foot elephant on top of the science center."

The campaign officially goes through November, but organizers hope the momentum will continue into next year, during hype for the "Year of Glass" exhibition at the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, and then into the city's 250th anniversary celebration in 2008.

Roars will also do print and television advertising locally and in outside markets such as Columbus, Cleveland and Baltimore. The thought, said Roars director Marguerite Jarrett Marks, is to lure tourists to Pittsburgh's party atmosphere this year and then keep them coming back for more.

Although it wasn't planned that way, the Pittsburgh Roars parties might as well have started with nationally broadcast revelry over the Steelers Super Bowl win.

"You know, we got lucky with the Steelers -- we watched as the region came together and people celebrated, and that is what Pittsburgh Roars is all about," Marks said.

"There's an extraordinary amount to celebrate. To see a quarter million people Downtown and not one arrest sends an incredibly positive statement about the city."

---

Pittsburgh Roars highlights

"Pittsburgh Roars," an eight-month campaign promoting local cultural events, kicks off at 9:30 this morning at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland. Museum doors open early at 10. There are about 150 "Roars" events scheduled, many of them marked by eye-catching inflatable art projects. Highlights include:

April 17 -- "Roar of the Harleys," PNC Park. (Repeats July 17, Aug. 28, Sept. 11.)

April 21 -- New works by Ron Desmett and Kathleen Mulcahy, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Friendship.

April 28 -- "Pittsburgh Roars Fireworks Night," PNC Park. Repeats May 26, June 16, July 28 and Sept. 29.

May 12 -- "Mythical Beasts" at Phipps Conservatory and Gardens, Oakland, featuring giant topiaries of dragons, the Loch Ness monster and other mythical creatures.

May 13 -- "Birds, Beasts and Battles: A Family Program of Renaissance Music," Renaissance & Baroque Society, Synod Hall, Oakland.

May 17 -- "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus," Pittsburgh Children's International Theater & Festival, North Side.

May 21 -- "Stuffed Animals: The Art and Science of Taxidermy" at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Oakland.

May 27 -- "The 'F' Word," Andy Warhol Museum, North Side. Recent works by a dozen contemporary female artists.

June 2 -- "Lions, Tigers and Groundhogs -- Oh My" at Three Rivers Arts Festival, Downtown. An animal-themed miniature golf course.

June 3 -- "Downtown Dragons," a two-hour walking tour led by Pittsburgh History & Landmarks of gargoyles and other creatures on city buildings. (Twice monthly through August.)

June 6 -- "Beauty and the Beast," Pittsburgh CLO, Benedum Center.

June 8 -- Grand opening of Schenley Plaza park, Oakland, by Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.

June 11 -- "Born of Fire: The Valley of Work, at Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, on the history of steel and blast furnaces.

June 22 -- "Pittsburgh: The Opera," by Squonk Theater at Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, East Liberty.

June 30 -- "small roars," by Associated Artists, displays and sells original work by local artists at 707 Penn Ave., Downtown. During Cultural District gallery crawl.

July 1 -- Hyundai Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta, Point State Park

July 1 -- Polar Bear Exhibit grand opening, Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.

July 15 -- Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix, Schenley Park.

July 15 -- Gymnastics competition, PNC Park.

Aug. 26 -- Fallingwater twilight tour, concert and dinner, Mill Run.

Sept. 6 -- "It's a Dog's Life: Photographs by William Wegman," Silver Eye Center for Photography, South Side.

Sept. 8 -- Pittsburgh Aviary "Feathered Jewels" gala, David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

Sept. 17 -- Macy's Elephant Day, at Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium. Eat cake and sing "Happy Birthday" to elephants.

-- Compiled by Timothy McNulty