The town just posted a flyer (PDF) at their website advertising the next First Friday, which just so happens to be this Friday. For those unaware, First Fridays are where some of Waxhaw's establishments stay open later so more people (especially those who commute into Charlotte and back) can examine their wares in an effort to drum up more traffic.
This tells us two things:
1) The town, in this case the Small Town Main Street Program Promotions Committee (that's a mouthful) isn't spreading the word much in advance, a slight complaint of mine in a previous post. I would think leaking word to Dorothy Moloney of The Waxhaw Exchange a couple weeks in advance would be the bare minimum, but I don't recall seeing anything about this in her recent columns.
2) All subsequent First Fridays will apparently continue to be called First Fridays. Thus answering one of Waxhaw's vexing questions (others here & here).
But little advance notice is better than none, so with family in town, it may be an opportune time to check out some of the local stores I rarely set foot in. Anyone know how child friendly these events are? Are there things for youngins to do?
One last thing: the photos on the flyer (PDF) should probably be updated. The picture on Main Street still features Jackson's Emporium, which has been gone for years now. Sorely missed by my family for the candy & ice cream, although it was crazy expensive. $1 for box of Nerds was too much.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Kaliph,
I appreciate you posting the information about First Friday on your blog. I'm sorry I just noticed it or I would have linked back to it from my own blog and social media accounts last week. I will make sure to do this for future mentions.
As a member (recently joined) of the Small Town Main Street Promotions Committee (we've got to come up with a shorter title- or employ an acronym!) I would like to apologize for not giving more notice. The concept of having a First Friday in Waxhaw is a new one and the committee, made up entirely of volunteers, is trying to coordinate the event among all of the downtown merchants and promote this without a budget. We are developing protocols and communication channels that will help us get all of the information in time to produce the posters and press releases and get those out to the public with more advanced notice in the future. Our goal is to get this information out at least 2 weeks prior to the First Friday events. Since I am the event coordinator for the committee, if you would like to know what is planned (themes, events, artist appearances, etc.) for upcoming First Fridays, please email me at gavin@1stpositionmarketing.com and I will be more than happy to share with you any information I have. I also post information and links to sites with more complete details on my twitter accounts (@gthead, @1stpositionmktg)
The next First Friday is May 7 and our theme is "Movie Madness". We plan to show movies on a large exterior wall and encourage merchants to host events that are tied to this movie theme (or show movies at their locations). Our planned them for June is "Jumpin' June" featuring lively music like jazz, big band, swing, oldies, etc. If you know of any musical artist or group that would like to perform please have them contact me at the above email address.
We are finalizing the themes for future First Fridays and would welcome any ideas or feedback. With the committee's permission, I would be glad to post our theme ideas here or on our Facebook page for input from the community. I would welcome that and I'm sure the committee would too.
By the way, yes there will be kid friendly events. Most merchants provide cookies or some kind of refreshments and some of our upcoming themes will feature kid favorite treats like ice cream. Additionally, we are brainstorming ways to provide more kid friendly activities and working with the local merchants to host something kid friendly outside of their stores if they do not necessarily have a kid friendly environment inside their store.
Gavin Head
Sorry for taking so long to respond, Gavin! And thanks for commenting. I've had family in town, so I've been a little busier than normal. And unfortunately for me, the mold in the crawl space doesn't clean itself.
I think a two week notice will help bring in more potential customers and also give the businesses more time to prepare. As I referenced in an earlier post, I don't believe I heard much of anything about the first First Friday & stumbled across notice of the second one. I can only imagine that there are many other Waxhaw denizens like me who could benefit from more heads up.
If there's any upcoming events, I'd be more than happy to include them on this site to help publicize events. And it'd be an even better idea to make sure Elisabeth Arriero, John Tiley, and Dorothy Moloney have a healthy notice as they have more sets of eyes reading their work than this humble blogger.
And while I've yet to write up a post detailing our First Friday visit, my boys had a pretty good time. The cookies aplenty, the Fiesta Band, lemonade from Waxhaw UMC, books from the Library Association's shops helped keep them occupied, but the promise of ice cream from Pizza Works helped keep them well-behaved.
Honestly I had hoped there was a little more for the kids to do & was hoping the Bead Merchants would have something for them do (simple craft or something), but by the time we got there, they were nearing mutiny, so we headed for ice cream without stepping inside. I realize that providing kid-friendly activities is pretty difficult to do, but hopefully over time, the town & businesses will be able to come up with some ideas that don't break anyone's bank & help bring in young families.
Post a Comment