Friday Night Thrills Pay Off

Friday nights in Bentonville got more entertaining when the First Friday festival launched in 2008.

It’s not unusual now to see a street performer juggling fire torches atop a 6-foot unicycle on North Main Street, while a jazz trio plays across the courtyard on Northeast A, and a clown performs magic tricks in the children’s area nearby.

Once a month between March and November, the city square is blocked off from 4 to 8 p.m. and transformed into a mecca of family entertainment, complete with free live music, craft vendors, food trucks, bouncy houses and carriage rides.

Families turn out for the fun, but First Friday means much more than that to the community, if you ask Andy Green, director of productions for Downtown Bentonville Inc.

Green estimates, based on head counts, that 4,000 to 6,000 people show up for First Friday each month. That means tax revenue and, more importantly, raised awareness and foot traffic for the surrounding local restaurants and shops.

While Green does not want to downplay the work the city has done in making the downtown retail district more appealing, he believes regular events like First Friday and the Bentonville Farmers Market, produced by Downtown Bentonville, have been a tremendous driver in the downtown development boom.

“Real estate in the square is highly occupied. You couldn’t have said that six or seven years ago,” he said.

Daniel Hintz, former executive director of Downtown Bentonville and a founder of First Friday, agrees the events have played a role in growth.

Recalling the period before the event was created, Hintz said, “The city had committed to redoing the square, redoing the street, but we still had empty store fronts.

 “We wanted to create an event that would bring some new, fresh attention to the downtown square. That was really the genesis of First Friday,” he said.

 

Friday Night Lights

If raising awareness for downtown businesses was the goal, it seems to be working. The event’s popularity has made fervent supporters out of the surrounding merchants, who Green estimates each see a 10–20 percent boost in sales on First Fridays.

“First Friday and the farmers market make our business,” said Lindsay Roberson, part owner of Blue Moon on the Square, which has been open about three and a half years.

Roberson said, while farmers market days always deliver in terms of sales, First Friday is indispensable from a marketing standpoint.

“We get a lot of lookers, window shoppers, and then they’ll come back and buy something maybe the next day or when there’s a sale. We still get a lot of ‘I didn’t realize you were here,’ during First Friday,” Roberson said.

And, although one might not associate shopping for diamonds and gold with a block party, Overstreet Jewelers sees high sales on those days as well.

“Count me as an enthusiastic supporter of First Friday,” said Don Overstreet, co-owner. “The enthusiasm, activity and awareness it brings to downtown Bentonville, the growth of the area and the proliferation of events like First Friday are beneficial to all of us.”

Despite increased competition from food trucks, downtown restaurants also report higher sales on First Fridays.

Hintz said all of this was not a happy accident.

“It wasn’t just, let’s put food trucks on and do it. We kind of focused it on the restaurants that were down there first, to try to get people in their doors. We focused on the retailers that were down there, and as the project grew over time, we added new elements,” he said.

“All of those things were very strategic, to make sure that, as new restaurants came on board, we weren’t hurting them, we were helping them. So we’d watch, for example, their wait times and how they were doing. The more the restaurants got busy, the more we knew we needed to service the customer as the First Friday group, and so we would add on another food truck,” Hintz said.

 

At First Blush

The first festival was in August 2008 on South Main Street, with only about 250 patrons.

Green joked, “I think the first First Friday was Daniel [Hintz], one vendor, a guitar player and his dog wearing a bandana on an empty street corner.”

Such a slow start could have shaken the faith of Carsten Concessions co-owner Jerry Carsten, who has been a vendor with First Friday since the beginning.

But it didn’t. “I told my wife [Vicki, also co-owner], I believe in this. It’s going to really be great,” he said.

September of that year brought another poor showing, and the organizers consider the real kickoff to have been the Oktoberfest-themed event, in which Downtown Bentonville partnered with the Northwest Arkansas Community College, cooked up some bratwurst, booked live music, and moved the party to the square.

In 2009, the organizers of First Friday hit their stride, Hintz said. “It was great. We got our bearings [and] kind of understood what the market bares.”

That was also when Downtown Bentonville took over management of the farmers market.

Throughout the years, Downtown Bentonville continued to add events, always making sure they were “aligned to the overall brand of downtown,” he said.

Along the same vein, vendors of First Friday are also carefully chosen.

There is usually a waiting list, Green said. “We look for things that are creative and interactive. It’s more like a block party. It’s not a trade show.”

There are usually demonstrations from local karate/martial arts classes and fencing classes. There is representation from soccer clubs and ballet classes, in addition to various services, including dog day care and boarding company Camp Bow Wow.

The Trike Theatre, a children’s performing arts center in Bentonville, often provides juggling demonstrations and practice for children.

Green said, “It’s a good way for families to come out and have some fun and also find out about activities in their area.”

For the past four years, First Friday has also brought in nationally recognized street performers, including world champion jugglers. “That was kind of a pipe dream of mine,” Green said. Performers are featured throughout the season, but this year Downtown Bentonville spotlighted the performers during the International Street Faire-themed event in April. 

There is a theme each month, the most popular being Toy Land on the Square in November, during which the festival doubles in size, both in the number of attendees and the vendors, Green said.

First Friday aims to keep activities family friendly. For example, Oktoberfest features a nonalcoholic root beer garden.

 

Making Room

Green said adding the kids’ zone helped alleviate some of the pressure from thousands of people in the 50,000-SF town square during a four-hour period.

The zone features pony rides, a bungee trampoline, bouncy houses, remote-control cars, and several free activities produced by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. supplier consulting company VendorMasters, located on Southwest C Street in downtown Bentonville.

“We want to be sure everyone is included in the First Friday fun, so we go out of our way to provide our activities free to anyone wanting to participate,” CEO Jami Dennis said. “Our activities to date have included Easter Bunny pics, carnival games, green bean seed planting, milk jug igloo sculpture, Queen Elsa and Princess Ana photo opportunities and cookie decorating.”

 

If You Build It …

First Friday also serves as a platform for starting and expanding small businesses.

Carsten Concessions of Siloam Springs operates in various fairs and festivals throughout Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri. It specializes in basic carnival food: funnel cakes, corn dogs, nachos, cotton candy, with a few surprises thrown in, including gyros and fried alligator. 

Carsten operates large, carnival-style trailers, featuring red and white striped details and back-lit signs with eye-catching lettering.

He says the trailers bring a commanding presence to an event.

“You know the expression, ‘If you build it they will come?’” he said. “People see those big trailers, and they feel like they’re supposed to be there.”

First Friday now averages 40 to 50 vendors each month, and each vendor is charged $75 per 10-by-10-foot space.

Because Downtown Bentonville is a nonprofit, the money from the event is reinvested into the development of downtown, including the production of First Friday and other events including the annual Art & Culinary Festival (going on through June 30) and the Lighting of the Square at Christmas time. 

The result is more opportunities for vendors to gain business.

“First Friday is an example of what focus and what a festival can bring to a downtown,” Carsten said. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. I wish more downtowns would do it.”