The biggest festival weekend of the year went well in Squamish’s downtown, but maybe not as well as hoped.
Sales were up at some downtown businesses due to the Squamish Valley Music Festival.
“It was definitely busier for all the days of the weekend,” said Mike Chapman, owner of newly opened 1914 Coffee Company, whose café sits on Second Avenue. He said he saw his regulars and other local people looking for a quiet place to tuck in from the main street crowds. In five days, he made as much money as he made in the previous two weeks, he said.
But the rainy weather was an issue.
“If it had been forecasted for 30 degrees, I was going to be out there selling [cold brews],” he said.
At the Bistro & Gelato Carina (formerly Newport Market) on Cleveland Avenue, business was steady all weekend.
“It was busy, no doubt about that, but a little bit slower than last year – I guess it was the rain,” said owner Karina Fischer.
The shop has recently stopped selling yarn and bulk food and started offering more meals and liquor, but the surge in customers was in the mornings before the festival acts started, so alcohol sales weren’t a factor.
“Nobody drinks alcohol in the mornings,” said Fischer.
Outside the downtown, unofficial pop-up businesses made some quick cash from crowds headed to the festival.
In addition to several groups of children selling freezies or lemonade for change outside the festival grounds, a trio of young adults were in the Squamish Business Park selling T-shirts.
“We wanted to try out the T-shirt business and we thought that upside-down pockets would be a fun way to do it,” said Logan Miller while sitting behind an array of colourful shirts spread out on the boulevard in front of him.
The shirts have a front pocket that is sewn on upside down, just for fun, he said.
Miller, Nick Bachman and Will Hanley were on their way home from Middlebury College in Vermont when they decided to stop at the festival.
“We had all these shirts and we thought Squamish would be a great place to sell them,” Miller said.
They had sold 60 T-shirts at $15 each by Sunday morning and had only worked a few hours both days, they said.
The free downtown activities during this year’s festival were centered in O’Siyam Pavilion Park with Festival Music On the Street. Unlike last year, the main downtown streets remained open to traffic. With the streets open, more people could easily access the Squamish Farmers’ Market on Saturday, which had been an issue last year, said Bianca Peters, executive director of the Downtown Squamish Business Improvement Association.
The musical lineup was popular, she said. The musical acts were supplied by Squamish Valley Music Festival.
