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Bottle Rock FeedbackThe comments that follow were solicited through the Downtown Napa Association’s newsletter. They are presented in the order received, using the name of the business instead of the individual who sent them, with two exceptions. The Board of Directors discussed the event as well, plus I’ve stopped in businesses and asked for feedback. Here is a summary of all comments:Merchants would prefer that the event be held on a weekend other than Mothers’ Day.Having said that, the real problem was that people were afraid to come downtown. The board felt the biggest challenge, and their responsibility, is to let locals know that downtown is accessible.Restaurants that participated in the event were pleased.Retail was slow, with some exceptions. Restaurants benefitted the most, although for some it was a bad week. Mothers’ Day traffic was way down. The biggest winners were restaurants who adjusted their hours. Generally speaking, if you were open until midnight or later, you made money.Bottle Rock organizers have to include In/Out privileges. Thursday was, overall, one of the slowest days downtown in years.Three TwinsOur sales were much lower than they would typically be. I would say that they were 35% to 40% lower than typical sales for a Friday and Saturday. I definitely would not want to see Bottle Rock return.ToyBVilleAll I can say is my business has been 1/3 to 1/2 of an average weekend. ?So Bottle Rock is not good for toy sales. ?Overall foot traffic is way down, so it's not only people not buying, it is the complete lack of people. ?I am thinking Monday, being getaway day, will be better for visitors buying souvenirs on their way out of town.No complaints about the visitors who have come, they are all nice and friendly, just not into spending.?Connie Anderson (publisher, Napa Valley Marketplace)Well... I live off Coombsville . ?We could hear the music from our house, as well as the helicopters and see the traffic. I walked down to the concert from my house. ?Everything was very organized despite my doubts coming into it. My review is, what a success! ?I am thrilled with the whole deal.?I hope it happens again next year.?Dorothy SalmonFor a first year event, Bottle Rock has been incredible. Congratulations to Bob and Gabe for a classy event. There were a few hiccups, but very few. The attendees loved the event, loved Napa and were impressed by our friendliness, our beauty and our town...Shoes on FirstBottle Rock was a great success, the people who came were great and if the City and the Register hadn't created panic about all the possible down sides everyone would have had a better week before the event. ?As far as Rockers going DT during the day and early evening there were a few but when people pony up $200-$500 to hear music they mostly just go listen to music so the restaurants and Hotels benefited and good for them. The pre event panic did prevent locals from coming to town which is the real shame of the event but Bottle Rock was just fine. ??Napa Valley TraditionsSaturday and Sunday were definitely better for us than Weds, Thurs, and Fri.? We had many inquiries about the Tshirts, etc because of our window display.? I would like to see at least a few merchants, willing to put up a window, etc to be able to sell Bottle Rock items.? We asked this time but were turned down.? We did hear lots of positive comments from those that did attend.? Napans who were VIP's were not happy about having to go south of town to be shuttled back to the fairgrounds and found their own parking spots after Weds night or Thurs night.? I think we should meet with the bottle rock team?for some feedback and positive suggestions for next year.? I definitely think it is a good thing.One other thing that goes with out saying.? Now that we know how it works, we need to be sure we have plans in place to help the bottle rockers staying downtown see all that downtown has to offer.? I am sure that the bars and restaurants around the Third and Main or Oxbow area had a great after hours crowd and were very successful during that period of time, perhaps not the rest of the time.Filippi’sThese are notes to myself which you are welcome to use.BOTTLE ROCK 2013Wednesday:Quiet day in the neighborhood. All of downtown seemed quiet, most regulars were probably afraid to come down because of all the hype and the fears of parking and crowd issues. Lunch business was good even with the lack of locals however dinner was way off and sales very low. We stayed open until 10:30 but probably missed some opportunity because we didn’t stay open later. Overall for the day poor sales, high payroll. Bottle Rock guests very nice. Thursday:Adjusted staff for the day shift noting that very few customers were coming in during the day. Bottle Rock guests still confused and confounded by the policy of no in and out privileges. Business very slow during the day shift. Made some adjustments and began doing Pizza by the slice to walkers by. Stayed open til midnight with some better sales after 10pm. Since most of the Bottle Rockers were local guests because a large number of free tickets were given out I think it was a slower day. Business was off for this day as well. There was hardly any parking available. I wish we could block the streets and allow only two hour parking throughout the entire downtown. This would force the Bottle Rock attendees to park in the many EMPTY parking lots that were charging for parking. I think this would really make it convenient for local trade. With street parking gone, there is no place for the locals.Friday:Lunch was up a little better today and we put a Booth out front to capture walkers by with pizza by the slice (brilliant!) how easy is that.Not too many customers for the evening considering it was a Friday night. Bottle Rock guests having an easier time getting in and out privileges so we are seeing more walk traffic with people coming in for a less expensive meal and beverage. Bottle Rock ended at 10pm and we were slammed until 12 midnight when we closed. The Pizza by the slice booth had a line down the street. We probably should have stayed open later but it was a long day for most of our team. Bar business was very good and all the Bottle Rockers were very nice and in kind and loving moods. (no jerks at all).Saturday:Good sales during the day mostly with people on the patio or grabbing a slice at the booth on the way there. Dinner business was again very slow with NO PARKING available at all on the streets.Pizza by the slice booth is proving to be the best part of the evening. At 10pm the streets exploded. We were better prepared for the onslaught tonight and by 10:10 the place was packed and the booth was humming and putting out slices as fast as we were making them. This was a much better night for late sales and we stayed open until 1am when the streets on this side were more quiet. We chose not to stay open past the bars. Overall better tonight with a lot of learning going into this.Sunday:We are obviously disappointed that Mother’s Day will be a bust. Many of the large parties have cancelled and moved to the other side of town. We are planning to stay open late again tonight but I think it might be a soft landing seeing that it’s Sunday night and some people must have to go back to work right?Overall, there were very few problems, all the Bottle Rockers were here to have fun and caused no problems!Overall learnings:I think that even though business was slower than it would be without Bottle Rock here it was a great opportunity and I would be willing to give up a little to gain what we did. With all the hiccups and disgruntled people around this event it simply involves change and that is hard for most of us. Now that it is coming to a close I say do it again. I will probably do better next time and now that we have seen it, we can make the necessary adjustments for the next time it is here.At that time we will all be better prepared to enjoy the show!Adjust staff and hours of operation to maximize capture of Bottle Rockers and lower labor costs to offset sales shortfall.Work with City to post 2 hour parking to help maximize local trade and increase people parking in the empty lots which nobody will pay for to go out to dinner.Let tourists know that we have a full bar before they have to ask.Consider limited menus during Bottle Rock to maximize sales and limit kitchen labor.It may even be a good time to partition off the dining room for detailed cleaning and use the bar and Patio for service. AngeleI am so happy that Bottlerock was a success but unfortunately for downtown businesses, it was not. We have not had a slow weekend like this since January. I hope next year we can all get together and discuss how this can be successful for everyone. My strong suggestion would be have the concert during the day and have it end around 5, so then the people can come downtown and enjoy all we have to offer.?Napa General StoreMy biggest remark is to not hold it over Mother’s Day weekend…late April or Mid-May but, missing Mother’s Day would go a long way in garnering downtown businesses support as this weekend is the busiest for restaurant businesses (I am sure many downtown restaurants did not see normal numbers this weekend and that’s not right).? ?I think it would be better if it was a tad shorter in length, Maybe Thursday evening through Sunday…it would tighten it up a bit, which would go a long way on balancing the event for everyone (including the folks that live near it…not sure how it worked out for them)Sushi MamboI hope we will have Bottle Rock every year! A well organized event and great exposure for Downtown. The Playful GardenWe ended up having a good weekend at the store despite BottleRock. I think that your article really helped! (Thank you so much!) Once locals realized that there were a ton of available parking spaces downtown, and that traffic really wasn't a problem, they came downtown to shop for Mother's Day. However, there was very little foot traffic downtown during the day. If BottleRock is held on a weekend other than Mother's Day, I think that we might reduce our hours at the store and go to BottleRock instead!After spending the day at BottleRock today, I came away very impressed. I think they did a fabulous job putting it together! Everyone I know who went thoroughly enjoyed themselves, as did I! I'm sure that every year it will get better and better, and I see it as a good thing for Napa in general.I'm sure that the local restaurants and tasting rooms that were open past 10PM greatly benefitted from the Event. I'm really interested to see how the wineries did at BottleRock, as it seemed that more people were drinking beer. I was just thinking…could the DNA ask the BottleRock organizers if it would be possible for "us" to have a huge tent at next year's BR Event? Interested downtown merchants could rent a booth in the tent, which would help pay for the rental of the tent.? The Playful Garden would be interested in selling hats, visors, etc. (and I'm sure that many others would as well). I would have purchased a BottleRock visor myself last weekend had there been any for sale. Or, another idea would be for the DNA to sell BottleRock visors and give a percentage of the profits to the organizers…BloomI think it was great! It would be nice to figure out a way to get people to come an extra day or two and check out what downtown has to offer, but there are still too many empty storefronts.Lotus Salon and SpaI do believe Bottlerock was a success! ?Let’s be frank, there were many naysayers looking for an impending disaster. And, it seems for the most part, that all the fears and "I-told-you-so's" are finally being put to rest. ?I heard of a few missteps, like the police directing people AWAY from downtown on the first evening after the concert, and the lines and crowdedness inside the venue. ?However, I mostly hear wonderful, happy stories of people enjoying music! Perfect! ?I for one am very proud of the producers. They pulled off what was seemingly an impossible task with style and confidence! ?Kudos!?As for the music itself, my family, including my crowd-leery autistic son, thoroughly enjoyed the sounds quite clearly from our own back-yard, which is only 2 blocks from the venue!I know it's a bit of a local travel hassle, and I may be in the minority on this, but I say bring on Bottlerock 2014! ?It's the arts after all!!!?Yo Belle YogurtWe had a greatt Bottle Rock weekend. Attended the show Thursday & Friday & loved it. As far as business goes, a little slow during the day from normal but we stayed open until after midnight Friday & Saturday then until 11 on Sunday and had a ball with the after concert crowd wanting something besides the bar scene. Can't wait till next year!Betty’s Girl BoutiqueThe overall take is that as structured bottle rock shut downtown down for several days. We didn't see many concert goers as most of their days ?were spent over at the fairgrounds especially on Thursday and Friday?and they didn't return to town until late in the evening. At the same time locals?avoided anything to do with downtown during the days of the concert. ?To make this a viable concept for the future my idea is to have the concerts begin later in the day such as four or 5 PM so that we could benefit from daytime business for retail and restaurants even allowing us to have events during the day. ?Happy to talk further as I think bottle rock had potential to be a business builder for all of us. KimBack Room WinesFoot traffic?sales Thursday through Sunday down 40%. A modest # of Bottle Rock attendees came through, tasted, bought little (one reason because they had?nowhere to?put their bottles...maybe I'll give a good?deal on shipping next year) helped the "big picture" aspect.??Overall,?as a business owner I'd say it was?a negative for?my biz. As you know, I find any events that?interrupt the normal flow of my day-to-day foot traffic?hurts my sales.??As a resident, I think it's a?way cool?event. Perhaps my greatest regret is I didn't attend thinking I needed to be here to handle the throngs that never came. I am glad it will be three days long next year, and with some creative ideas, hopefully I can make it a positive for the shop in 2014 and beyond.Formatech IT ServicesI went to the Wednesday night show, plus Friday, Saturday and Sunday.? It was totally awesome.? Everyone was really nice, the attendees, the ID checkers, the security etc.? The bands were my kind of bands, which made it all the more needful that I buy these tickets this year, in case it couldn’t come back.? For me personally, logistically it was pretty hard to get to downtown for the day/night.? I would say for locals, it might have been more difficult because the Vine/Blue route didn’t run – it would have been a slam dunk had the bus run for locals.? The port-a-potties were practically unused as I went to the one in the far back on purpose.? The food was great.? I budgeted $100 a day for myself and always came home with lots leftover despite the $9 beers and $16 glasses of wine.? I would like to thank God for the weather.? And thank all of the neighbors who put up with so much sound – so loud, so awesome.? I’m exhausted, but it was the coolest thing ever to come to Napa.Tillerman TeaA well run festival, a well behaved crowd, a great job by NPD and NSO; this will benefit everyone in Napa in the long term. I am looking forward to next year.Embassy SuitesAll went well here at ESH and we are delighted that it will return next year over the same weekend!!Alexis Baking CompanySome random thoughts...1) way too much anxiety over this regarding security, traffic flow, people flow2) really confusing communication with the community and conflicting reports - I think this was something that bubbled up throughout the event3) in general people were mostly ecstatic over this event being here in NapaThe figures don't lie....ABC had the biggest weekend we've EVER had....thank you BR.only one of our "please don't park here" signs got stolen...out of 4....not too bad.the 5 day event was too long....Wednesday and Thursday were a real bust downtown with lots of restos pretty empty. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were another story. And because we do breakfast we were busy....not sure how other people fared who did lunch and/or dinner. I read on the BR FB page that there were no maps of downtown so people on the fairgrounds site didn't know what was available to them....just blocks away...maybe DO NAPA can help with that next year.Did I love that there was clear and audible music to hear right on the porch of my house...till 10pm? not really but, it's not much different than when the fair is up and running...the excitement around town was palpable.....no one can deny that....it was a great boon to some of us...I'd be interested to see what the numbers finally come out at....did they? make money? did the vendors? was the city happy?I thought it was pretty cheeky that before it was even over they advertised next year's event...on the same MOTHER'S DAY weekend but, given how it panned out this year...plenty of parking downtown (did people just not know this year?) it may not have the impact we thought it would...hmmm..The fact that they pulled this off - with some considerable help from some smart seasoned people - is to be lauded....and admired....as the recipient of some of this success I can only be grateful.....there's a whole year ahead now for planning - thank god.Anette’sOver all the Concert EVENT itself was a hit.? Everyone I have talked to that went found it Fantastic. Granted a few tweeks were needed, but a huge success.?? ?On the other hand, for businesses on the west side of downtown, business was off.? Anette’s was down at least 20% combining all 5 days. I hope with a few changes to the event’s communications to attendies ?more downtown businesses could benefit from the event – making it a Win-Win for more merchants. Mustard Seed Clothing CompanyBottle Rock was amazing. Everyone I know that went loved it and is looking forward to next year.? I purchased 2 -3 day passes and gave them to my daughter and niece thinking?the shop?would be very busy.??Sadly we were very slow during the festival. Our regulars were scared off by all the publicity?regarding parking, and anticipated kayos created by 35,000 people a day in town, etc. ? Heck,?I could have found parking on?the?West End anywhere.? Sounds like business was brisk at the River Front according to?Scott Lyle in this morning’s paper. So Happy for Scott and the Riverfront, but I've?heard more reports of slow business?around me?than busy. ? Many of my customers came to shop days?before Bottle Rock anticipating the worst.? Almost everyone we talked to?not going said they would either stay home or get the heck out of town during the Festival.? So many unknowns the first year...? Seems to me? the City and press may have over reacted (and well they should have) trying to avoid a major disaster. Unfortunately the hype and unknown?may have scared locals away from?Downtown.?However,?my base?customer? tends to avoid large crowds. ???Hopefully,?next year locals won't be scared to come downtown and?we find ?solutions to circulate more Festival goers around Downtown.? I think?Bottle Rock?should?open around 3 or 4:00 instead of 11:00.?Even my kids had a tough time hanging?out all day and night. Visitors coming to Napa can walk around town shop, eat breakfast and lunch in town enjoy the?Downtown experience. ??Glad it?will ?be Fri,Sat and Sunday next year. A very good move for Visitors, and?give the poor soles who live?close?by?some relief. Soooooooooo, to answer your question...LOVED BOTTLE ROCK !!!!I would be happy to Volunteer for a committee,?if formed, ?to figure out how to generate more business for Downtown stores during the event next year. ?My store was?slow?during the event but I think if we put our minds to it.....?IT COULD BE AMAZING for all of us. ??Ben & Jerry’sEpic event, looking forward to BottleRock 2B. RealFor us at B. Real Wed-Friday were ok, but Saturday rocked!! Looking forward to next year!!Celadon/Cole’sIt wasn't quite as fabulous for downtown merchants as some reported. Although I am not 'anti-bottlerock' I did see a 21% decrease in my sales at Celadon from last year and a 13% decrease at Cole's for the same Wednesday to Sunday period. I think most of the restaurants in downtown would report similar numbers. I did not participate as a food vendor this year so I would imagine had I been at the fairgrounds serving food I might have made a 'killing', I don't know, I haven't talked to any of the restaurants that participated. BJ’s Petal PushersAll in all we survived Mother’s Day delivering.? We adjusted our deliveries to start out super earlyfor South Napa and it worked!? During Bottle Rock we did approx. 300 deliveries.I see it is already scheduled for Mother’s Day weekend again so will continue to do early deliveries.We even had some Bottle Rockers come in and order Mother’s Day flowers ~ Mason CellarsHere are the statistics from our weekend ?(Thursday – Saturday) for Bottlerock.Bottlerock visitors:? 20Bottlerock sales:? $341.Total visitors:? 46Not very impressive.? We did not extend our hours and we closed on Sunday, May 12 thinking there would be no locals (mother’s day visits) ?or Bottlerockers that day.? So from our viewpoint it was a loss of revenue. ???It deterred our local business and especially deterred out of town visitors from coming to the tasting room.Napa Valley JewelersNot much business from BR but I didn't have ?big expectations. Publicity keep some regular customers away. Slow weekend. Hope to hear that restaurants and bars did well. Glad it is coming back next year.Best Western Elm HousePersonally I feel it is out of scale for Napa.? That said none of my pre-conceived concerns occurred -?traffic jams, rowdy guests?and?packed restaurants.? The guest demographic at the Elm House was?younger but overall well behaved.?The?event guest room rate premium?was around 25% which?we will take but if BR2 did not happen?we would be ok.? ?Bottom line if you asked me for a yeah or neah vote I would vote present and defer to?other area businesses and the event site neighbors.?Napa Valley Tourist Information CenterThe festival was great, really enjoyed everything they had to offer on site and did not run into any parking/traffic issues.On the business side, we are extremely disappointed and need to come up with some viable options to bring festival people to the downtown area.Just a couple of quick thoughts that came to mind - The Tourist Info Center can hold and release the “VIP” bags to guests as they arrive so they are in the area and we can Feed them info and options on all of the downtown merchants etc. * ?discounts and offers from the Local restaurants and shops to bring the folks downtown. ?* Reentry to the festival is a must.*Advertisement and promotion from the Bottle Rock mucky mucks.MiyamoBottle Rock was great!!! ?My only complaint is when they?restricted?In's and Out's on Thursday, downtown was a ghost town and our business suffered. ?Once they changed their policy for all other days we were really busy, people were happy, and we?didn't?have any problems. Can't wait for next year!Inn on RandolphCraig , this is what I heard from guests and my own observations.If you asked ten different people the same question you received ten different answers.Not enough recyclers or garbage cans, especially on Saturday and Sunday. ?Maybe they could have had staff to empty them when they were full. ?Changing the comedy lineup at last minute really pissed off one of our guests. ?Said they'd not consider attending next year because they missed the one person they wanted to see.Changed their minds too often about what could be brought into the venue, etc..The security people were very polite. ?Where did they get all those lovely African American people who worked security, etc? ?They were incredibly polite.Personally I thought it went very well all things considered. ?It will be interesting to see what "the city" has to say about it all.TarlaHi CraigHow are you hope?everything?is well .Here ?are my?thoughts about bottle rock:?We were ?slow starting?Wednesday to?Saturday?Lunch and Dinner. We did good after 10 pm on?Friday?and?Saturday?just because we had to open our bar late so we can recover some of the lost we had and opining bar late did?of course put lots of stress on us with drunk people and we also had to watch out with fire department and ABC people coming around so you?really?had to stay on top of that which we did, it just was lots of work to just stay open late to recover from slow week and the weekend.?I believe the media scared locals away from downtown, that was ?plenty of?parking,?infect we had more parking spots open than ever.??I believe the event was great for the City, I am not against it, what can we do so all the?businesses??in downtown wont lose?businesses?from it next year.I think ?event should be held on another?week other than Mother's Day and??the locals should know that it is a great time to dine downtown, and that parking ?not an issue. ?See you at chef's market and you do good things for the city thank you. ?Sweetie PiesWe actually had a vendor booth at BottleRock.? We had normal numbers at the store not the numbers that we normally have for Mother's Day weekend.? Our mornings were good not great and our afternoons everyday were very slow...?I think that the build up of the traffic and parking nightmare that never happened effected all of us.? The parking plan that the event put into place seemed to really work so the issues never seemed to come down the pike.?The Register called me on Sat. to ask about the reentry issue...I have no idea why they decided to rescind it and then put it back into place but I am sure that it hurt the businesses down here.? The businesses that I spoke to near Veterns Park seemed to be busier.? Maybe the location helped them.NV Wine TrainThis has been a great event for Downtown Napa. Could the organizers please consider scheduling a date that is not around major holidays where the Valley will sell out naturally like Mothers Day or even Memorial Day that would help us out. The traffic concerns moving around town were not bad at all. It was nice to see a multi-generation of people enjoying the town and what it has to offer. It was great to hear the sounds of the concert.?Napa Chamber of CommerceI would like to offer a huge congratulation to Bottle Rock and their team of talented professional and dedicated volunteers for the great work that they ALL did to bring this successful event to Napa. That being said, there are many opportunities to enhance the targeted customers, VIPs and vendors overall experience, e.g. better access to VIP bathrooms (Miner Stage), better access to food vendors in the VIP areas, shade for VIP areas, better viewing for the VIP areas, and most of all the number one issue that I heard from every VIP I spoke with was – not sure that there was much value in paying for the VIP tickets. The VIP after parties had their own set of challenges but seemed to be will attended. Many of the vendors also see opportunities where improvement can be made that would in turn help them make more $$$. One major area for improvement is in the area of crowd control and keeping pathways clear for safety and better movement throughout the event, mostly around the stages and vendors. Maybe the single greatest opportunity to improve on is in the area of community engagement, businesses and the general population should have a platform (maybe there was but we did not know of it) where they can express their concerns. This will help mitigate a lot of the negative comments that are making it to the media and spreading by word of mouth. On that note, events like Bottle Rock will greatly benefit the overall community from the positive economic impact it brings to most of the business community. The challenge is to create programs that either directly or indirectly benefit those businesses that see a downturn in business when large events like Bottle Rock are held. ??Silver SensationsIt's my belief the event negatively affected downtown merchants. People were afraid to come downtown because of traffic and parking concerns.?Furthermore, the BottleRockers who were downtown, were intent on walking briskly to their destination. There was no reason for them to be downtown other than to head to the Expo.?The confusion about whether people could leave the venue only contributed to people not having the freedom for other activities once they went into the venue.?The event being held on Mother's Day weekend was disruptive and detrimental?to our typical Mother's Day weekend sales. Apparently, next year it will be held on Mother's Day weekend again. ?Since we have a year to plan for the next event perhaps the Downtown Merchants can put together a plan for activities,?or possibly, promotions that might entice people to spend money downtown. Can we spin off the event as we did the Chef's Market event??Can we approach event organizers to see if they would be willing to coordinate in reaching out to event attendees??The downtown merchants were expected to suffer the consequences (too much traffic, lack of parking, loss of business) for nothing or little in return. Only the food venues and wine bars benefited, mostly after 9:30 p.m.There has to be some acceptable quid pro quo for the damage it will do?to our commercial interests on an important "sales" weekend.?I recognize there is a local school of thought that takes the position that the downtown merchants are just whining ... that no one goes downtown anyway because there isn't anything down there of interest. Well, if that's what the locals think, then?we merchants need?to seize the opportunity to reach out to visitors who?come into town to have?a party weekend.?We have a year to plan. We should make the most of it.Beaded NomadGreat crowd - I just wish they would spend $$ downtown?Negative effect on sales in general?Saturday sales (usually best day of week) down 50%+?Thought traffic and parking would be bad, but?found out differently.Bottlerock had everything under control, but locals stayed away.Now know parking and traffic?a non-issue.?Tried opening at 10:00am?vs 11:00?am -? few locals getting jump on crowd, but not worth itTried staying open later till 8:00 pm (2 days)? people looking not really buying?- not worth itTried closing at 6:00 and re-opening @ 9:30 pm till 11:00 pm (Friday nite)? 7 people walked into store?- heard comments oh look they are open but kept walkingNothing helped?Need to team up with Bottlerock to get people downtown.? Otherwise I can't get behind themdue to impact on sales.? Especially if they do this again during the Mothers Day weekend,which should already be a good weekend for downtown in general.?Maybe market downtown?as part of Bottlerock specials for VIP ticket holders?or something?Possible music downtown??I would be willing to be on a committee to see if we can boost sales downtown for this event?I know they have announced that this event will happen again next year, but doesn't thecity have any say??? If they do not?downtown businesses need to be more involved in thisevent, especially if it is held during Mothers Day weekend.Scott Lyall Clothing for Men (gleaned from the article quoting him in the Register)Scott was open ‘till 10:30 Thursday and Friday, and midnight on Saturday and Sunday. Was it worth it? Absolutely – business was fantastic.The Loose CabooseBottle?rock was NOT a hit in my neighborhood. I will try to get a full report to you in the next few days. We lost a lot of business in that 5 day mess.UVAThank you for?getting an article?in Saturday's paper. As I mentioned to you over the phone, I believe the media scared locals away from downtown. Uva had plenty of?parking except for a couple of hours Saturday afternoon. ?I grew up in Napa and my family has lived here since the 70's. Napa has come along way and has become a?world destination spot?over this time. Change is good, and I believe the event was great for the City, and in short?successful. I?believe?like most?new events do, Bottle Rock?had?some problems. A major obstacle?was the "no in out" policy.?This impacted?Uva most?from Wednesday?through Friday.?Also,?event goers that I spoke to?said that?event security?was confused about this policy and which gates were the "exit"?gates that were deemed for use of?locals. ?It was very?quiet?leading into one of?the best and?biggest weekends that capitalizes on Mother's Day.?The weekend business was down?30% from what we have done in past years. Speaking to other merchants, the benefactors were?hotels and bars. Uva is a restaurant and we had some?weekend?traffic?but not enough to call it a good day. Some of the walk-in were "happy"?(they had?had enough to drink) and were just looking for that last place to eat something. A restaurant's can't survive on the 11pm to 1am crowd or at least not one the size of Uva.?This event should be held on another?week other than Mother's Day. The "in & out" policy?should be changed and the local media can do it's part by?encouraging?locals to support and "own" their?downtown.?Next?year, the locals should know that it is a great time to dine downtown, and that parking and crowds are?not an issue.? ................
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