It won’t be known until April what effect streamlining One Spark will have on the exhibitors, but some Downtown businesses think festival organizers are on the right track.
When the change from six days to three was announced Monday, One Spark board Chair Peter Rummell described taking a day to set up a booth or display and then presenting their product 10 or more hours a day for five days was “a killer experience.”
Merchants say less One Spark could turn out to be an improvement.
“I’m glad they are cutting it to three days. It was exhausting last year,” said Jennifer O’Donnell, manager of Chamblin’s Uptown Café and Bookstore.
“Three days of One Spark is like six Art Walks,” she said, referring to the four-hour art festival staged Downtown the first Wednesday of each month.
Chamblin’s was a venue for the first three years of One Spark and will be back on the list for 2016.
The crowd grew each year and so did food and beverage sales at the vegetarian and vegan café.
But the schedule last year was grueling.
“We worked 70 hours in five days,” O’Donnell said. “We were exhausted.”
At the other end of Laura Street, the Jacksonville Landing and many of its merchants provided venue space for the festival’s first three years and will again in 2016.
General Manager Janice Lowe said the Landing hosts about 50 festival events presented by a variety of organizations each year, so she understands why One Spark made the decision to downsize.
“It’s not easy and it costs a lot of money to put on a festival,” she said.
Shrinking the footprint from 20 square blocks to a single block east and west of the Laura Street corridor from the Landing to Hemming Park and clustering exhibit themes also are changes for One Spark 2016.
Since 2013, exhibitors set up where they wished, so it was often difficult to hear a tech developer explain an idea for a new app while a live band was performing a few feet away.
When One Spark opens in April, exhibitors will be grouped by six topics: arts and culture, education, lifestyle, health and wellness, social good and technology and engineering.
“That’s a very good idea,” Lowe said. “It will make it easy for people to make sure they see all of the exhibits that interest them.”
Roy Thomas, owner of Jacobs Jewelers, also agreed that abbreviating the festival is a good idea.
The store hasn’t been a festival venue, but it’s open Monday-Saturday during One Spark week, just like the other 51 weeks of the year.
Thomas said he’s sure the store gained a few new customers from One Spark, but the carnival atmosphere for blocks around the business at Adams and Laura streets keeps his regular clients away from the store.
“Our customers won’t walk more than three blocks from where they park to come into the store,” said Thomas. “Three days will be less disruption.”
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