As the 60th Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts gets underway, downtown State College businesses are ready for one of their busiest weeks of the year.
Stores and restaurants are stocking extra inventory, scheduling additional staff, extending hours and finding new ways to draw thousands of visitors through their doors during the five-day festival.
For many businesses, the influx of foot traffic provides a significant mid-summer boost during a time when Penn State students are largely away from campus.
Lee Anne Jeffries, executive director of the Downtown State College Improvement District, said the festival’s economic impact extends well beyond the artists lining the streets.
“I think some businesses truly embrace the festival and try to be an active participant in coming up with ways to get involved,” Jeffries said. “I think some of the successful businesses think ahead, and in terms of ‘how can I benefit from the thousands of people walking by my store and bring people in?’ So I think we see that evolve over the years, too.”
Exactly how much businesses benefit, she said, often depends on factors outside anyone’s control.
“Depending on the weather and how things go, I think that really does determine a lot of that economic impact from year to year,” Jeffries said. “We always hope that it’s nice weather for everyone.”
Many storefronts tailor their offerings specifically for festival visitors, finding new ways to engage with the influx of people.
“Our businesses really get in the spirit of things. It’s an exciting time of year,” she said. “People look forward to it.”
At McLanahan’s Downtown Market and A’s Pub, 116 S. Allen St., preparations began well before the first festival tents were assembled.
Team manager Shay Tilghman said the downtown store increased orders for beverages, especially beer, snacks and convenience items while setting up discounted clothing racks outside to attract pedestrians.
“We prepare clothing racks for sales out there, and we ordered extra drinks and food for the kids and customers,” Tilghman said. “It’s an increase; that’s a plus. It brings a lot more people in, especially with the addition of the bar…It’s really nice for the local businesses that all these people come in.”
The store doubled its typical summer inventory, she said, in preparation for the anticipated crowd. The size of their order for the week this year is comparable to what they typically purchase ahead of Penn State football home game weekends.
Located along one of the festival’s busiest streets, with family activities, a misting tunnel, water features, and live entertainment, McLanahan’s expects many visitors to stop in for necessities throughout the day, or to grab a drink inside.
“It’s a lot of fun, brings in a lot of people,” Tilghman said. “This is the store they’re gonna come to if they need snacks, beer and whatnot, being that it’s right here, right on the block.”
The increase in customers also requires additional attention and planning behind the scenes.
“We’re spending more money, we’re making more money,” she said. “You have to make sure you’re carding better, paying attention to theft and to the youngsters that come in and try to buy beer and wine.”
Like many downtown employers during the summer, with Penn State students leaving for break, staffing remains a challenge.
“Currently we are understaffed, but normally, if we had a full staff, we could have extra people on in the evening to offset the crowd. But right now we happen to be understaffed, so it’s kind of rough,” Tilghman said.
Just across the street, Appalachian Outdoors also prepares weeks in advance for the festival and anticipation of the large crowds. Floor manager Darcy Faber said the outdoors and apparel retailer orders additional merchandise and schedules staff accordingly.
“We do definitely order ahead a little bit because we know it’s going to be a busier time,” Faber said. “We basically mark it as a blackout period for people taking off work, just because we need all the staff we can on hand, so that we can manage the crowds as they come in. Over the next few days we do expect to have been quite busy here, so we have our staff on as if it’s our busiest season.”
Although this is Faber’s first Arts Festival, coworkers told her the event fills the gap between spring commencement and students returning for the fall semester.
“From what I’ve heard it is definitely what brings most people in because all of the school students are away,” she said. “It’s kind of like the slow period, and then it brings us the hype, as if it’s like our busiest period through the holidays.”
The store also adjusts its inventory to match what visitors are most likely to need while spending long days outdoors.
“During this time of year, it’s hot and sunny, so we sell umbrellas for any rain or sun, and then we have sunscreen, raincoats, sunglasses,” Faber sad. “Basically anything for the people that are here and they don’t want to have to go home to get something, they can just pop in here and we kind of have the necessities to get you through the day if you didn’t pack everything you needed before you showed up.”.
Appalachian Outdoors also plans to keep its doors open later than usual throughout the festival, given the amount of people still remaining on Allen Street.
“We keep our doors open later than our normal 8 [p.m. close] during Arts Fest just because there are so many people out on the street, right in front of the store,” Faber said. “We keep things open as long as people are wanting to come in and out.”
Schlow Centre Region Library, also located on Allen Street, also experiences one of its busiest weeks of the year during Arts Festival.
“We are preparing for a great deal of foot traffic,” Kim Patti, Schlow’s head of advancement services, said. “We serve as a place for people to come in and cool down because we have air conditioning here in the building, and we also offer restroom facilities for the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts here at Schlow Library.”
The library increases staffing, purchases additional snacks and bottled water and coordinates with borough officials months in advance to prepare for the crowds.
“I have a whole checklist that I go through starting actually in March to start with these preparations for that to make sure that I’m touching base with everybody that I need to coordinate with, from the people at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts but also other people in town,” Patti said. “I’m touching base with the borough, who’s responsible for cleaning our building, to make sure that they’re aware of what’s happening. They do extra patrols and extra cleaning.”
Schlow also hosts the annual BookFest PA, a used book sale benefiting the Schlow Library Foundation, portions of the Art Fest’s juried Images exhibition and live performances by musicians from the Nittany Valley Symphony.
“We’re excited to be a part of it,” Patti said. “We’re excited to offer what we can. We’re excited to help to be a part of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, and we’re excited to offer some different things that we don’t normally see in the library…I think it just overall makes for a nice, well-rounded feel because we’re celebrating all of the arts.”
Beyond individual businesses, Jeffries says the Downtown State College Improvement District continues working with festival organizers to spread visitors throughout the business district.
Along with shopping and dining, visitors can also explore downtown beyond the festival route through DSCID’s free self-guided and guided mural walks on Saturday.
The guided tours begin at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the corner of West Beaver Avenue and South Fraser Street and highlight several public art installations, along with the new “Looking at US: Celebrating America’s 250th” murals.
The tour showcases dozens of murals across downtown, including several on the eastern end of the business district, where organizers hope additional foot traffic will benefit businesses outside the festival’s busiest blocks.
“Many of the pieces are on the east end too, so we’d like to get people to walk through downtown,” Jefferies said. “Our district is only nine blocks, so it’s not a huge downtown to navigate when you’re in town. I’m really hoping some people get down there, but we were always talking to Arts Fest about ways that we can connect and bring more people down to that side of town.”
For the past several years, Jefferies says DSCID has also coordinated with downtown restaurants and Arts Fest organizers to provide pre-ordered lunches for exhibiting artists.
“Many times the artists sit in their booths all day, and if they don’t have anyone helping them, it’s really hard for them to leave and go grab lunch,” she said. “We’re working with a bunch of downtown restaurants to have food delivered to the artist booths, and we’ve been working with the festival to make that happen and communicating with the artists through them, getting their orders ahead of time.”
Festival volunteers deliver meals directly to artist booths, allowing artists to remain with their displays while giving restaurants throughout downtown, including those away from the festival route, an opportunity to participate.
“It’s a true partnership that does help other parts of downtown,” Jeffries said. “This is allowing restaurants that are on the other side of town to contribute and get some sales from what’s going on at the festival.”
Many local businesses expect downtown streets to remain busy throughout the five-day-festival as visitors browse artist booths, attend performances and spend the weekend outside.
Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts continues through Sunday with more than 300 juried artists, live music and entertainment, food vendors and family activities throughout downtown State College and Penn State’s University Park campus.
“We want to make sure that we are doing our best to represent State College in a positive light, knowing that we have a lot of people that are visiting the area,” Patti said. “We’re making sure that we’re putting as good of a spin on State College as we can and showcasing all of the great things that are available in the Centre Region for people that are visiting.”
