Ed Carcarey doesn’t need to be convinced that Santa Maria can have a vibrant downtown community—he plans to make it happen with events like Downtown Fridays, now in its second year.
“I think Santa Maria has been hungry for this forever,” Carcarey said.
Returning on March 31 and running through Sept. 29, Downtown Fridays boasts more than 70 food and product vendors, a farmers market, a beer and wine tent featuring local wineries and breweries once a month, and live music.
The festival, put on by the city of Santa Maria along with event coordinators Carcarey and Sofia Lopez, is part of an ongoing effort to help encourage residents to see downtown as a place to visit, shop, and integrate into their daily routines.
According to a press release from the city of Santa Maria, the event is “a result of the city’s Downtown Plan, which focuses on ways to help draw in more visitors to the downtown area.”
There was skepticism over whether the committee that brought the project to life could help turn Town Center West into an area with as much foot traffic as other niche downtown communities, Carcarey explained.
But the festival was a surprise hit.
Carcarey said the event exceeded the expectations of even its biggest supporters. In the end, Downtown Fridays drew more than 2,000 people every week, according to a press release from the city.
“We had 8,000 people the first night,” Carcarey said. “We caused traffic problems.”
With numbers like that, the obligatory clutching of pearls wasn’t far behind.
Organizers like Carcarey went into the planning stage knowing full well that the overall impression of downtown in many residents’ eyes was fairly negative. Tongues clucked with premonitions of alcohol-fueled incidents or outbreaks of crime. Those fears were quickly put to rest.
“In 30 weeks, there was not one disturbance, not one fight,” he said. “Nobody even tripped and fell.”
With the event hailed a success, many vendors and partners have lined up to join the festivities this year. The key to that success, vendors and organizers say, is less about offering a boutique village of consumerism and more about creating bonds between diverse elements of the community.
Anne Cremarosa of MIYB Spaces, one of the event sponsors, said that Downtown Fridays serves as important time to interact with neighbors and business owners.
“There really hasn’t been anything like that in our community; we need those family-friendly outings,” she said. “It’s great to have the music, watching kids get up and dance.
“To interact with community, that’s a lot of fun,” she added.
Friday evenings are typically not a priority time slot for events that are family inclusive. While singles and childless adults can always find some options for drinking, dancing, or dining, families with small children don’t necessarily have a lot of fun choices, especially if the kids have already seen the latest Pixar flick at the movie theater.
Kathryn Scott, owner of Glitter Kat, which does face painting for kids, said last year’s event was good for her business.
“It was awesome,” she said. “There were super big crowds. They brought in good music and did a good job bringing in different groups of people.”
Aside from the business aspects, Scott said the biggest benefit was exposure to a diverse section of the community.
“I think it’s just about getting out and meeting people,” she said. “There’s a social aspect about being out on a Friday night. It’s not like work. It’s a festival.”
Downtown Fridays isn’t limited to glittery butterfly face art. A huge draw is the live music.
Mike Arriola is the lead singer for Steppin’ Out, a local band that performed at the festival last year.
Arriola told the Sun that the group is also looking forward to a new year of gigs at Downtown Fridays, which help draw new fans for them.
“It was kind of a whole brand new thing for Santa Maria last year,” he said. “Last year was a lot of fun.”
Arriola said the event bridges a gap for residents with families looking for unique entertainment.
“For that that type of audience, there’s really not that much to do on Friday nights,” he said. “For small children or older adults, this a great family event. There’s not too many of those.”
Another big draw for the event is the inclusion of a traditional farmers market. There’s a special feeling knowing that the bag of plums you’re taking home came from a farmer who lives in a local zip code.
“We’ve got certified farmers selling their produce grown on their own land, not middlemen,” Carcarey said. “These are local farmers from somewhere in our valley.”
Arriola used to play at the farmers market in SLO, and said that Downtown Fridays shows a lot of promise for the future of Santa Maria.
“I like where they are going,” he said. “It can be just as big and popular [as SLO’s].”
Carcarey said one of the important goals setting out was to ensure that Downtown Fridays appealed to a broad range of community residents, especially when it comes to the entertainment.
“We bring in some really good bands, both Spanish and English,” he said. “It’s important that we serve the entire city.”
That sentiment echoes with other participants in the event.
“This truly is a community event, from the vendors to the entertainment,” Cremarosa said. “It is representative of who we are.”
Scott said the event and the exposure to so many new Spanish-speaking customers and their children inspired her to learn some of the language.
“I wanted to learn how to expand my world,” she said. “To communicate, to talk to the children.”
Scott said she plans for her business to return to Downtown Fridays starting March 31.
“It’s just about people all coming together to have a good time,” she said.
Rebecca Rose would like to have her face painted like a kitty. Contact her at rrose@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 6, 2017.