The North Carolina Azalea Festival draws 100,000 visitors to Wilmington each year, and the street festival downtown is a huge part of that: over 200 vendors with food stalls, crafts and other wares.
But several downtown businesses were frustrated by how Azalea Fest impacted them this year. Bella Conway owns Homebody Collective with her mom and sister.
“We were blocked off by a lot of the food trucks, so we did have to close down early some of the days,” she said. The small boutique on Walnut and Front had a large food truck in front of it during Azalea Fest Weekend, with fencing that stopped any attendees from filtering through to the sidewalk.
“We didn't have any shoppers, so it was not worth us staying open. And usually, like, a weekend like that is pretty like a weekend is usually very busy for us," Conway said.
She’s not alone in that experience: Maria Giresi works for Top Toad on Front, and said Friday and Sunday were particularly slow for the t-shirt shop.
“Because you had your food trucks right here on Market Street in front so people were going there and then walking by with their food and ice cream and whatever. So it really wasn't for the businesses here," she said.
She knows other businesses did better, though.
“It wasn't that busy on this end. I mean, if you were a restaurant or one of the bars, you did really well.”
Josh Cranford, co-owner of Front Street Brewery, can attest: Azalea Fest is great for his business.
“We were busy from open to close, and that's what we were looking for," he said, adding that every year, Azalea Fest marks the start of the restaurant’s busy season.
Anecdotally, some employees from downtown fine-dining establishments said the impact was more negligible (since they're already frequently booked up on weekends) or slightly negative — but declined to talk on the record.
Boutiques polled on Market Street did good business as well — but, of course, they weren’t blocked out by the street fair vendors. Businesses like Island Passage and Black Cat Shoppe had better foot traffic than typical spring weekends, according to staff. And some businesses on Front fared well too — vintage shop Rosie Revolution, for instance, had more foot traffic, according to Co-Owner Matthew MacKenzie Pifer.
“I would say Azalea Festival marks the beginning of the spring and summer for us and for local businesses,” he said. “I feel like we saw sales return back to normal, as they are for spring and summer, but only for certain things. I've seen other things that usually sell very quickly, like small trinkets and jewelry, didn't sell as well during the festival because of the vendors out front and all along French street. But other things did still sell, like clothing and costumes and things.”
Other types of businesses, though, close down anytime Front Street closes. Roby Powers owns NSalo, a hair salon on Front and Walnut. He said “Azalea Festival really takes my business down to about zero. I know, Saturdays we lose about 100% and on that Friday, we lose about 50% of our business. So it really takes a pretty drastic abuse to our business.”
He added, “I think, you know, there's no businesses between Cape Fear, community college and Third Street. I think that would be a beautiful place to put it.”
The organizers of Azalea Fest field complaints from downtown businesses every year. But events coordinator Anna Pfirman said they’re constrained by state and local regulations when it comes to food truck placement.
“The best way for us to accommodate all of those needs is to have them close together, all of them in, you know, that one section,” she explained.
The regulations are also the reason the boutiques were fenced out: they need to keep guests from wandering close to grills and hot fryers. While business owners chafed against the imposition of the fences, they are a safety requirement.
But some trucks also ignored the festival’s rules, Prfirman said. “We do not permit for, you know, excessive signage and things like that, by the time they had gotten them up, and we were going over to say, oh, sorry, we need that to come down. It was no longer safe for them to do so because pedestrian traffic.
Similarly, contractors installed fences before an organizer could select the spot, and the food trucks just started getting set up in those locations.
Several boutique owners and other Front Street businesses told WHQR that they’ve raised concerns for years without seeing much change.
Executive Director Alison Barringer says the azalea festival is committed to working with people who want to work with them — and has tried outreach events for downtown businesses that are poorly attended.
“So just know that we're open. And you can contact the azalea festival directly. We're open year round. So my email is on the website. Email us. You can call us, basically, in my opinion, anybody that's come to us and really wants to get involved. We found a way to do it.”
Pfirman says the Azalea Festival is committed to bringing in locals: 36% of the vendors were from the tri-county area, and 83% were from the state of North Carolina. She also sets the vendor rates at $300 for the full weekend for arts and crafts vendors, compared to $1200 for corporate vendors. As for the brick and mortar stores located along the fair route, Pfirman said: “you can apply, and you pay a discounted rate to have your own booth space out there. So I believe it's $200 and that way they can participate, some of them buy the space and then just leave it open.” Others, she said, will bring their wares out to the sidewalk for display to entice buyers inside.
Last year, three downtown businesses applied during the fall vendor application period, and all three of them got their spots.
