Despite some harsh weather, this year’s Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts was as successful as previous years, Executive Director Rick Bryant said.
‘It seemed like the same amount of people showed up,’ Bryant said. ‘The artists said they had strong sales. I thought it was great.’
About 100,000 visitors typically come to the festival, with about 300 artists selling their work, he said. And even though the weather leapt from brutal heat to torrential downpour, Bryant said there was still plenty of activity throughout the festival.
‘[The weather] makes for a less pleasant experience, but we made up for it Saturday,’ he said.
The weather wasn’t a problem for all businesses. The heat brought the crowds to the Berkey Creamery. With lines out of the door and winding through campus, the store was booming with sales throughout the entire festival until this morning, Manager Tom Palchak said. There were even a few occasions in which the store had to stay open more than a hour past 11 p.m. to ‘make sure everyone got their ice cream,’ he said.
‘It was like controlled chaos,’ he said. ‘We produced like there was no tomorrow to make sure we didn’t run out of stock.’
Palchak said the store saw about a five-percent increase in sales throughout the weekend. Not even Friday night’s rainfall could stop people from wanting a cone.
‘The store wasn’t impacted at all,’ he said. ‘It was just as a long as a football weekend.’
Student Book Store General Manager John Lindo said while the weather ‘sloped down’ his store’s sales, the date of the festival was also a contribution to the slight decrease in sales.
‘It was a little bit closer to the Fourth of July, so it didn’t seem like there were as many people this year,’ he said. ‘To me, maybe it was because of the weather…but last year was a little better.’
Bryant said while this was the closest the festival has ever been to the Fourth of July, it ‘doesn’t make a big difference as far as audience goes.’
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