PLEASANTON — The First Wednesday street parties that helped rejuvenate this city’s historical downtown are ending after 20 years.
The Pleasanton Downtown Association announced Thursday that it’s pulling the plug on the event because of flagging attendance and revenues.
“First Wednesday was a huge success and beloved by Pleasanton residents,” said Laura Olson, the executive director of the downtown association. “But at some point it lost its effectiveness. It had a good run, and now it’s time to focus on other new events in our downtown.”
Olson noted that many parents said they were too rushed for time to attend a midweek event amid competition for time with youth sports, school demands and other activities. “People in this community are so busy,” she said.
Organizers also struggled with a perception that the emphasis of the street fair was shifting toward alcohol consumption in a beer-and-wine garden rather than family-friendly draws for parents and their children. “We want to promote family-friendly events,” she said.
Some downtown businesses also felt the street fair, held on the first Wednesday of the month, wasn’t pumping up their business despite the added foot traffic.
“We felt it definitely hurt us,” said Meredith Ring, co-owner of Pastas Trattoria along with her father, Richard. “We love being on Main Street. But with the lack of parking, we noticed we had fewer customers on First Wednesdays.”
Ring also said she felt the street fair changed from a folksy event at which neighbors bumped into neighbors to a less intimate affair with many out-of-town vendors selling items.
The event also became a financial and time drain rather than a money maker for the downtown association, which relies on event profits and business assessments to support its many events, including wine strolls and Friday night concerts in a park, Olson said.
Pleasanton was one of the first Bay Area cities to close off part of a downtown street on a regular night to draw in visitors with food booths, musicians and vendors.
As recently as seven years ago, as many as 20,000 or more people attended some of the events, which were held from May through September.
The association in September launched a new event called Fork Full in which restaurants set up outdoor stations to provide bites of food to passers-by. In February, a similar new event called Spoon Full will feature hearty stews or dishes for cold weather.
To fill the void of First Wednesdays, the association also is planning to come up with another big event in 2019 that is yet to be determined.
