Hecho De Mano Store Folk And Garden: Monrovia festival coming to Arcadia? We will be op...

Hecho De Mano Store Folk And Garden: Monrovia festival coming to Arcadia? We will be op...: Monrovia festival coming to Arcadia? May 26, 2015  by  admin   7 Comments The company that originated and has produced Monrovia’s popu...

Monrovia festival coming to Arcadia? We will be open for the festival to celebrate the big move.

Monrovia festival coming to Arcadia?

May 26, 2015 by admin 7 Comments

The company that originated and has produced Monrovia’s popular Friday Night Family Fun Festival for nearly 23 years may be moving the street fair over to Downtown Arcadia starting as soon as July 3.

Monrovia Friday Night Family Fun Festival

While Monrovia will continue with a weekly event, a committee of city and downtown merchant officials, among others, opted to broaden the appeal of the festival to youth and hire a new event producer with no experience in weekly street markets — L.A. PartyWorks of South El Monte, which left Family Festival Productions of Monrovia free to bring the best of their food and merchandise vendors, family and kids activities, bands, and farmers’ market to Arcadia from 5-9 p.m. Friday nights.

After seeming to express nearly unanimous support of the concept in a Study Session last week, the Arcadia City Council is expected to vote on the proposal by the Downtown Arcadia Improvement Association next Tuesday, June 2.

At that time, the Council is also expected to consider a small patriotic concert and festival proposed to take place on July 3, potentially simultaneous with the kick-off of the Street Fair. The band concert, with various food vendors and possibly a shave ice truck offering red, white, and blue Hawai’ian shave ice, is also being mounted by the AIA and organized specificaly by AIA Treasurer Matt McSweeny of Matt Denny’s Ale House Restaurant.

The AIA is a non-profit group of volunteer property and business owners who are taxing themselves to create a more vibrant Downtown area of retail, restaurants and entertainment in time to leverage the anticipated additional traffic for the nearby Gold Line train station when it opens in late 2016 or early 2017.
A third AIA proposal to be considered by the Council is a Chinese Lunar New Year event on January 31, 2016, in the City-owned large public parking lot between First and Santa Anita Avenues, south of the post office and behind the shops on the north side of Huntington Drive. Producers of the show, EDI Media, have created similar events and parades in Rosemead, Temple City, and elsewhere the past few years, and say they can attract as many as 10,000 or more people. But representatives told City officials last week that they would scale back the Arcadia show to atract 5,000 – 8,000 attendees if necessary due to limited parking and to avoid congestion.

Christmas Market in Downtown Arcadia December 2014

Among recent events in Downtown Arcadia have been the Arcadia Historical Society’s dedication last September of the Thoroughbred Racing Walk of Champions, which closed off First Avenue north of Huntington Drive for the Saturday evening ceremonies and festivities. Earlier this month the First Avenue Middle School band played at an AIA event at Arcadia Blues Club on Hungtington Drive between Santa Anita and First Avenues. The past two years the non-profit Arcadia’s Best Foundation, which produced the first Patriotic Festival and parade in 2011 on First Avenue south of Huntington Drive to Duarte Road, has produced the Christmas Market on First Avenue north of Huntington Drive to Wheeler Avenue. That event, which featured the vendors, bands and kids inflated jumpers from Family Festival Productions’ Monrovia Friday Night events on the first three Saturday evenings in December, drew 2,000 attendees last year when it was co-sponsored by the AIA.

The new Downtown Arcadia Street Fair, if approved, would use that same location on First Avenue north of Huntington Drive, but extend halfway into a second block, north of Wheeler Avenue below Santa Clara Street. Wheeler and Santa Clara would remain open to east-west vehicle traffic. If the new street fair is approved to begin July 3, a portion of it may be extended a little further to Santa Clara in order to connect with the proposed patriotic concert at the Gold Line train station Transit Plaza on the northwest corner of First and Santa Clara. Likewise for any potential tree-lighting ceremony at the Transit Plaza to tie in with a Christmas market-oriented street fair.

Like the Monrovia Friday night events on Myrtle Avenue and the Arcadia Christmas Markets, the new Downtown Arcadia Street Fair would be free and open to the public. Both are primarily design to attract people to their respective downtown areas in order to attract more potential customers and businesses.
Family Festival Productions owner Dave Gayman told the AIA that when he started on Myrtle Avenue in the early 1990s there were only six restaurants in the area. Now there are more than 30.

Lauren Vasquez, senior management analyst for the City Manager’s office in the City of Monrovia, told ArcadiasBest.com tonight (May 26, 2015) that she credits Gayman and Family Festival Productions with much of that growth. “We wish him well,” Monrovia City Manager Oliver Chi added later Tuesday evening.

AIA and City officials said that type of development of restaurants and retail is exactly what many Arcadians have long coveted about Monrovia’s Old Town on Myrtle Avenue, and that the situation is tremendouly fortuitous to spark more rapid development and interest in Downtown Arcadia. Nonetheless, AIA and the City of Arcadia are expected to tread cautiously and build in reviews at 90-days and again in six-months to make sure the Arcadia Street Fair is delivering quality vendors and quality overall experience.
Funding of city fire, police, and public works services required could also derail the project. The AIA is hoping to attract sponsors to cover these costs if the City of Arcadia is unwilling to absorb these fees (since this opportunity only arose this month, this was not included in the proposed 2015-16 City budget that will also be up for a vote on June 2).

Monrovia’s decision to switch producers came as the latest five-year agreement with FFP was expiring, according to Vasquez. A call went out for proposals (an RFP) and the bid by LA PartyWorks simply scored higher, she said, even while acknowledging that the new producer has never done a weekly street market and does not have its own pool of vendors to bring to the event. L.A. PartyWorks, which specializes in rental equipment and single event planning, will take over July 3, the very next week after FFP produces its final show in Monrovia on June 26. The new Monrovia event will feature a slightly modified name — the word “Festival” will be replaced by “Fair.”

Vasquez said that while the Monrovia Friday Night Family Street Fair is intended to feature all the same elements as always, it will also offer more for young teens who are still taken to such activities with their parents but who often prefer not to walk around with their elders. The new production will make an effort to provide more elements of interest for those kids, she said.
Added City Manager Chi, “It will continue to have the same flavor that people have come to expect but it wll be enhanced with elements that will create even more excitement.”

Gayman of FFP said that although both events would be staged at the same time and on the same night, the Downtown Arcadia Street Fair will not really compete that much with the Monrovia event.
The Monrovia event covers four or five blocks of a wider street with more parking and more businesses open during the event, including a movie theater, all of which Arcadia hopes to emulate over time.
Gayman said that a portion of the crowds in Monrovia come from Arcadia, and a significant percentage of the Chinese-Americans are from Arcadia, all of whom will enjoy having the option of visiting their favorite vendors closer to home.

Although Monrovia officials feel that most of the most valuable vendors will remain in Monrovia, Gayman says that most of them have had a great and successful experience with the Christmas Market in Arcadia the past two years and are so anxious to make the switch that many have already given him their commmitment.
Owners of the Stacked Sandwich eatery on First Avenue raved about the benefit of the Christmas Market last year. The restaurant stayed open past normal business hours during the event and enjoyed a steady stream of customers, most of which were discovering Stacked Sandwich for the first time, and many of which subsequently returned.

— By Scott Hettrick