Rethinking the Downtown Block Party

Since last Friday, the shine has dulled a little bit from the block party, especially have hearing from a few folks about the event.

One city official noted the toys being sold on tables that lined the street. There were a lot of guns, knives and other non-family-friendly items being sold on the street. Should the city be allowing toy guns to be sold on the street? At a family event?

Second, a Main Street business leader noted the lack of interest organizers showed to Main Street businesses. This business didn't stay open for the event, feeling organizers shoved them off to the side. A restaurant stayed out of it, because organizers wanted a $165 fee to have space on the street.

Certainly, the event organizers need to raise money to cover costs and put on a quality event. We have no idea if that $165 fee is onerous or not. We'd like to think it's worth it, just to have hundreds of people walking by your signage for a night. If a few folks stopped to sample your food, and liked it, maybe that leads to new business.

But we digress.

The overarching message from the business leader was the general lack of interest from organizers to include downtown businesses in the event. I know commenter Donna had a role in organizing, does she want to respond?

This all comes back, for us, to the general lack of local businesses at the event. We're not sure what business was selling the toy guns, balloons and other stuff on the street, but they didn't have any signage, so we don't think they're a local company with a storefront somewhere. Where was the local stores with cool things to sell? Maybe they only make $30 or $40 for the night, as Donna noted last week, but don't they get more in terms of advertising to a captive audience that probably numbered in the thousands?

In the end, the block party was a good event. It brought people downtown, and anything that does that is a good thing in our book. But the event should be a showcase of local restaurants and business. If it can't do that, another event should be created that does it. And lose the toy guns. Especially after this week's incident (and we heard from the city official before the incident), it just doesn't seem proper.