Russell has been vocal about his support of increasing exposure to the East End of Main Street. He is a member of the Beacon East End Business Association. "Being on the East End of Main Street, a lot of people don’t even know that we’re here. So just to get those numbers of people on the street here is important. I feel that the East End is really a special part of Main Street, and a special part of Beacon. Once people experience this part of Beacon, they will be back. So I think that’s good for local businesses on the East End."
Parking, Trains, Walking - What Was It Like?
As with any large event happening in one's own town, there were some Grumpy Cats expressing doubts about the event, concerns over parking, and the big question: Would it be good for business? At the end of the day, 10,000 people came to Beacon by train, foot, and car, according to Sam from K104.7. Somehow the parking was absorbed. A lot of people hit A Little Beacon Blog's Free Parking Guide page before coming, and even wrote into us asking for walking directions. Recalls Sam after the big day: "I spoke with people from as far as Brooklyn and New Jersey to Monticello, Pennsylvania and Connecticut!"
Says Beacon resident Heidi Harrison, who lives in a wooded area down Churchill Street (the street between the Howland Center and the old Matteawan Train Station that currently houses the new Gino's Italian Ice shop): "I was out of town for the festival, but I watched it through people’s photos in social media. My neighbors told me that people found their way to our area and parked in front of our driveways!”
Liz Ferrera, owner of reMADE on the West End of town near Bank Square, reported that a large SUV parked in front of her store for longer than the allowed two hours, leaving her forlorn when the carload of people did not pop into her shop to take a look around before driving away. The two-hour parking rule is known to be - for the most part - unenforced in Beacon, and is a common complaint among business owners. Fellow business owners sometimes park in front of shops for hours on end, as do residential tenants who live above the storefronts and park all day and night. We discovered this trend during our survey of businesses on Main Street when the topic of parking meters bubbled up. Most wanted enforcement of the two-hour parking rule to happen first, before investing in and installing parking meters.
Main Street isn't alone in its parking woes. It's a part of life on residential side streets like where I live. Surrounded by three churches, every Sunday, cars fill the street to go to church. Cars don't block us in, but backing out of the driveway is hard, and if we're expecting company, we put out our orange cones to reserve parking. Back where I come from in Ohio, when a spring festival comes to town or Fourth of July parades are hosted, parking gets very creative, strategic, and for locals, often involves parking in friends' driveways as favors. Some owners of private parking lots charge for spaces for the weekend, making extra cash during the festival.
Hopeful visitors wrote into A Little Beacon Blog for directions on walking from the train station to the festival. Key Food set up their Kettle Korn tent to catch the walkers headed to the festival with the irresistible smell of popcorn, and reported that the stand "did very well." Businesses from sewing store Beetle and Fred to Alps Chocolate to Mr. V's all reported watching crowds of people whooshing down Main Street, hoofing it on foot to get to the cupcakes as quickly as they could. Says the Alps manager, "I don't know what the rush was. There were plenty of cupcakes, right?"
How Many Cupcakes Sell At A Cupcake Festival?
Well... of the 70 vendors that participated in the festival, 18 of them were cupcake makers. K104.7 recommended that vendors bring at least 1,000 cupcakes, and to price them no less than $3, most likely as a way to create pricing fairness. As a cupcake festival vendor newbie, this recommendation was a bit unbelievable. After experiencing the festival, however, and the lines that did not quit, it was clear that cupcake lovers were there to get lots of what they wanted. Joe Condon, owner of Joe's Irish Pub, observed: "The woman who set up in front of my pub [must have] made a killing. She was sold out by 3:30 pm." The festival started at 1 pm and ended at 5 pm.
Jason Schuler, founder of Drink More Good, has made participating in markets all over the state his number one marketing strategy. He can do about eight markets a weekend with this team. Drink More Good's main storefront/kitchen is located closer to the middle of Main Street, not in the heart of the festival with all of the foot traffic, so how did they fare? "The Cupcake Festival was a huge success in my opinion. It brought an insane amount of people to Beacon, and I guarantee a good portion of those people will be back to explore the town at a later date. We saw an increase in new traffic that day, but also had a private event in the evening that we closed early for. The only thing I'll do different next year for the Cupcake Festival is to actually get a booth at the event and sell as a vendor!"
Was the Cupcake Festival a Milestone Day for Everyone?
