Downtown business owners are turning off the engine and beefing up on food.
The Downtown New Westminster Business Improvement Area’s board of directors made a unanimous decision to pull the plug on the Show and Shine festival, which draws thousands of car lovers to the area every summer, but it’s keeping the Food Truck Fest.
“It’s a big, bold decision, however, we feel it’s the right one,” Kendra Johnston, executive director of the BIA, said in a media release. “Our mandate is to support our business community and while the Show and Shine, at one time, fit that mandate, unfortunately in recent years, it has become less relevant, less successful, and less beneficial to our membership.”
The organization is not a production company or a community festival association, release stated.
“We are a BIA and we need to ensure we are serving our membership above all else,” Johnston said in the release.
Still, the group plans to carry on with its successful Food Truck Festival, which launched in 2013, exceeding expectations with the turnout that first year. Last summer, 50,000 hungry visitors made their way to the Columbia Street event, which takes less than one-fifth the labour and resources to produce than the Show and Shine, according to the BIA. The show and shine takes more than 1,000 hours each year to produce, Johnston said in the release.
“The members found this type of event a much better avenue to showcase what they have to offer,” Johnston said about the Food Truck Fest. “We could produce a different type of event with much less and reap our members much more,” she added.
The BIA has held the downtown Show and Shine for 15 years. Johnston, who is currently taking vacation days from work, said she has been involved with the event since the early days and felt an “emotional attachment” to the event and the challenging decision pulled at heartstrings.
“However, from a purely business point of view, we need to ensure that we are using our staff time and resources efficiently and as productively as possible,” she said.
The BIA hopes another group will step up and take over the Show and Shine.
“We definitely want to see this event continue under someone else’s leadership as we see its value in terms of tradition and community,” Maddison McKitrick, BIA events coordinator, said in the release. “If another organization comes forward and would like to take it on we’d be happy to hand over the keys and support them to successfully carry it forward.”
The BIA is a non-profit association made up of commercial business owners and building tenant in the downtown. The organization receives its funding from a special tax levied on commercial property owners. Board members are elected volunteer business owners from within the community.
