SARASOTA – The City of Venice brought back their weekend craft festival, helping small business owners on the Suncoast get back on their feet.
“It’s a nice day, small town, a good little walk just to get out, check out the new stores, eat some ice cream,” said Owner of Orchid Envy, Natalee McKinney.
For business owner, Natalee McKinney, weekly farmers market and the Venice craft festival have helped her business get busy again
“We were shut down, a lot of people could use the extra money in their pockets, the small businesses which hurt the most, we don’t have the big corporate money, we could really use the kick start to get back going again, people spending the little extra money here, all my stuff is local so when you shop here it goes directly to Venice or the state of Florida and directly back to their pockets,” said McKinney.
McKinney says this year’s craft festival was the first on Venice Avenue since the start of the pandemic
“It brought a lot of people down to the area so we took advantage of that, set up some extra booths, brought in some more orchids, featured some local artists, featured our python leather so that’s been great,” said McKinney.
Another small business owner says the pop-up festivals are vital
“Their extremely important for small businesses, it’s great, one of the reasons we moved down here to Florida is because its open, you know God bless freedom Florida, and were allowed to have these festivals to help u make money and support our business and our way of life,” said Co-owner of Bopbe Jewelry, Scott Irigoyen.
Owner of solar charging beach tables, David Wennick says the festival also helps with exposure.
“It’s very difficult when you are competing online, it becomes very expensive to promote your product online and you don’t know how many people are actually seeing it, like those who want a beach table, they may want to look at it, but when you come to the art shows, they’re looking for a product that’s unique and artistic and when it meets both of those worlds it makes a really nice product for them to buy so it helps us out for our business,” said Wennick.