Uptowne Olds Committee chair Leon Durand says Summer Oldstice needs to be “fine-tuned” for next year.
This year, organizers of the annual festival, designed to bring people into Uptowne, experimented with spreading attractions all over the area – down side streets and across the railway tracks, because businesses had complained that in previous years, too many attractions were centred along 50 Avenue.
Another factor was that this year, the Mountain View Pistons car club chose to move its annual show and shine to the Olds-Didsbury Airport, so that attraction was not in Uptowne this year.
Durand is hopeful the Pistons can be persuaded to hold their event during Oldstice next year.
He stressed when interviewed, he hadn't had a chance to read all the feedback received on this year's edition of Summer Oldstice.
Durand says the idea to spread attractions throughout Uptowne is likely a good one but it needs some work.
“There was lots of traffic walking around, I thought. My concern all along was whether or not this was going to be a problem, being too spread out,” he said.
“They did a pretty good job; that part worked out better than I had expected, so I was happy with that. But I think from the vendors' standpoint, they didn't like being so spread out,” he said.
“I think if we were to do it spread out like that again, we would have to have more vendors at every venue and there are certain areas we shouldn't have anybody in.”
He cited the example of one venue across the street from the Mountain View Museum.
“They put in one on the left side there and that was one that I thought, ‘oh, unless you fill up that parking lot and that little green space, then that's going to be bad for whoever's there.'
“And when I drove around, I saw one vendor in that little green spot. They were all by themselves,” Durand said.
He said he conveyed that concern when the locations were being planned out.
“I said, ‘I don't think anybody should be in that little park, unless you have 10 of them down there. One is not going to cut it. Two is not even going to cut it,'” Durand said.
On the positive side, he said the weather was good for the most part, until the skies darkened at about 3:30 p.m.
“As to next year, what's going to happen? Well, we'll have to have our next meeting and talk about that and decide – take a look at all the facts and right now, I don't have enough of the facts to fully judge that,” Durand said.
“I think we have to wait till we go over it all and have a meeting of our membership and decide how best to do it next year. I would probably say that we have to take a look at it and make some changes. (It) certainly has to be fine-tuned, at the very least.”
"There was lots of traffic walking around, I thought. My concern all along was whether or not this was going to be a problem, being too spread out."LEON DURANDCHAIR UPTOWNE OLDS COMMITTEE
