CITY FOCUS:Fair boosts city business

Huntington Beach has gotten used to Surf City Nights, the weekly Main Street fair and farmers’ market that draws 5,000 people downtown each Tuesday. But as people flooded downtown for a festival lasting all weekend, organizers said they had a new hit.

A Father’s Day festival brought 15,000 people to Main Street over the weekend, according to the Downtown Business Improvement District. Planners called it a success for most businesses and a major draw for families even without a farmer’s market. But they also called it a learning experience, and organizers vow to make the next one go a little smoother.

Anecdotal reports showed business up by 32% to 35%, said city economic development director Stanley Smalewicz. At the same time, some smaller merchants had to stretch their staff to run a store and a vendor booth on the street at the same time.

Even the glitches will help improve the city’s plans next time, Smalewicz said.

“I think it was a success,” he said. “We are seeing a positive impact on a bunch of different levels. What we knew from day one is that this was going to be a learning process, and that with each event we’d have to tweak it some.”

Crowds drawn to the many special activities and stores made for an especially vibrant weekend, said Connie Pedenko, executive director of the Downtown Business Improvement District.

“If you’d stand in the middle of the street and look straight down all the way to the pier, you’d see rows and rows of heads,” she said. “It was fabulous.”

Pedenko said she only saw a few changes necessary: “Start sooner, and of course advertise more.” She also said she wanted to help merchants who had never run a booth before, as some were still learning the ropes.

The next festival will be a joint effort with the Huntington Beach Art Center, with at least one exhibit on the street.

In the meantime, weekly festival Surf City Nights will continue as local businesses keep looking for sponsors for the event, Pedenko said, adding that no sponsor has signed up yet, but several are in serious negotiations.

Surf City Nights will be skipping July 3, for Fourth of July preparations, she said. But while the Business Improvement District has promised to fund the festival through the end of June, Pedenko says the event will continue one way or another.

“You’ll see us back in July,” she said.

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