Long before every city had an art walk, Columbus had the Hop. The Short North’s Gallery Hop — held the first Saturday of nearly every month since the 1980s — turns High Street into Ohio’s happiest promenade: galleries unveil new exhibitions, street performers stake their corners, and thousands hop from show to show.
What sets the Hop apart is density and welcome: world-class galleries beside indie boutiques, museum curators beside first-date couples, everyone drifting under the district’s 17 lighted arches with a glass in hand and a new favorite artist by the end of the night.
Each Hop has its own flavor — summer’s are street festivals, December’s is a gift-hunt — but the ritual is constant.
Columbus invented this night, then gave it to everyone, monthly, free. Hop in.
