The Park City Council last week discussed special events, both past and future.
The council heard a review of last summer’s Park Silly Market, from Market organizers and the city’s Economic Development Director Jonathan Weidenhammer.
Council member Lynn Ware Peek raised a question about how the Market impacts local merchants. Year ago, she noted, a task force came up with a suggestion that they though could help Main Street.
“They came up with that if you extended the hours to 5:00 pm then maybe people would stick around, and it would create more vibrancy on Main Street all together. People would come for the market and then they would go out to dinner. I’ve just heard from a couple of merchants, they would like to see the Silly Market be more like a farmer’s market that is typical in a lot of towns and cities where it starts at 9:00 am and maybe ends at 1:00 or 2:00 pm. Which is pretty typical. We know that the Silly Market is much more than a farmer’s market but those were the questions that came up. I just kind of wanted to know the history of it and it was funny that Jonathan said, ‘yeah we talk about this, it seems like once every other year.’”
Did the idea work? She said, it depends on who you ask.
“Some would say, no people come for the market and then they leave. Others, you know I’ve come up before to catch the end of the market and go to dinner and so again it’s just so hard to tell.”
Peek said with two years left on the contract the hours will remain the same.
Also, the council got a preview of the FIS World Cup ski championships coming in February. Peek said that personally, she’s thrilled about the event.
“It was funny that someone mentioned that they thought that we haven’t been hearing a lot about it but I feel like I’ve been hearing, you know I’ve been looking forward to 2019 knowing these World Championships were coming for years now. I think it’s going to be exciting, it’s going to encompass all three of our resorts there are going to be I think about 1,300 athletes here from 50 different countries. As Calum Clark from U.S. Ski and Snowboard presented yesterday saying that was way more than even they anticipated.”
The beginning of the FIS event is going to overlap with the end of the Sundance Film Festival.
“It’s that waning you know second weekend, but the Saturday, the final Saturday of Sundance which is day number two of the World Championships where the opening ceremonies are going to be held out at the canyons village. There’s going to be some huge juggling and we’re going to have to ask the community to really be part of it and really understand and be aware of the challenges for that day. It shows the world what we do and shows all those who come here who really only identify our community through the festival that they’ll see that. I just find it to be really exciting and it’s a good way to show off what we do.”
Peek said she’s hoping that locals can not just deal with this busy time—but embrace it.
“It will be that one day, and probably just the afternoon that’s going to be really difficult. At canyons village the event starts at 5:00 with the opening ceremonies and then I think the competition starts at 7:00 and then maybe out at Basin Rec where they typically do the film festival awards I believe that starts at 6:00 so who knows about which was on 224 traffic is going to be moving mostly and all I can say is that our public safety officials are going to have a rather large task at hand. Through the help of the media, we’ll just try to manage.”
