While I will be going to the festival tomorrow, I wonder about the planning of this event.  I think the planners of this event thought it was going to be bigger than what it is.  According to today’s Sentinel, there are 59 vendors–but not all of these are vendors selling merchandise.  Eight of these are demonstration vendors, the UGA Extension booth, the Parks & Recs booth, and a radio sponsor booth.  There are no booths in the main part of the plaza–most of them are around the old courthouse and on the street next to the courthouse.

Also, the hours are kind of odd.  The festival doesn’t open until NOON.  The high tomorrow is 95.  I don’t know how many people will be willing to go somewhere in the hottest part of the day.  Why didn’t they start it at 9am, when it would be cooler and more people would be willing to attend?  I guess they wanted to be able to catch the people eating lunch and dinner at Gumbeaux’s and the other restaurants in downtown.  There will be food vendors, but only two out of the six will have booths.  Why not combine this festival with a mini-Taste of Douglasville so there would be more options? 

The Sentinel’s so-called map looks like it was hand-drawn, done in pencil and magic marker.  If you’re going to make a map, make sure you label all streets and that the map is clear enough to read.  Church Street is the only street labeled on the map, and Hwy 78 isn’t even on the map. 

Parking might also be an issue.  There is only one large parking lot, which fills up pretty quickly, and then the rest is parallell parking along Hwy 78 and down the other side streets.  If the city plans on having more events like this downtown, maybe they should think about building a parking deck like Carrollton did recently so they can handle large crowds.

Any other comments?