How Main Street Leverages Events... Without Relying On Them

Twice every year, gates go up around Grapevine Main Street. Through traffic disappears, and the asphalt linking historic businesses to one another overflows with tens of thousands of people, all drawn to the center of Grapevine by the same thing: the allure of a festival. According to foot traffic estimates from Placer.ai, 29 of the 30 busiest days in the Historic District last year coincided with Main Street Fest, GrapeFest, or the Christmas Capital of Texas event season. Events are, undeniably, the force that fuels the City’s most iconic neighborhood. 

But events alone can’t account for small business success here. 

Most vendors with storefronts inside the festival ground will tell you they benefit from the foot traffic, although some say road closures are inconvenient. But no matter which side they fall on, they’ve all adapted to the unique economic environment. Established business owners in Grapevine know how to make the most of our major festivals, whether by leveraging the foot traffic or staffing the volunteer booths. And, for most of them, the most essential element isn’t the event itself. 

Why Magnetic Events Matter for Any Business Owner 

No matter the service or product on sale, every business needs a steady supply of customers to succeed. That’s why marketing and brand awareness are an essential part of budgets and long-term strategies across the country. But, according to Grapevine Chamber of Commerce CEO RaDonna Hessel, geographical advantages can be worth even more. 

“I think for [business owners], they think or feel that when they open their doors, people will automatically come. But the realistic approach is that it takes other pieces, other drivers, to make that happen,” Hessel said. “The benefit of being on Main Street is you can open your door, put a sign on the sidewalk, and there’s many, many people that are walking past your door every day that may or may not come in and visit, depending on how well you dress up the entrance of your store. But people appreciate that automatic tie-in to customers.” 

As one of the City’s most walkable retail nodes, the Historic District is especially good at converting window shoppers into true buyers. Recent updates have made it easier to explore the entire area in one go, and some of the owners have been here for decades. They know how to dress up a storefront and craft a compelling sandwich board. But they can’t deliver visitors to the area alone. 

“Most of us spend our lives driving to work or from work, taking our kids to school and taking them home. Going out to eat occasionally, but we all go to our favorite places. If we’re shopping, we tend to go back to our go-to’s,” Hessel said. “So you have to have that reminder that we’re here, and we’re awesome, and you need to come check us out. The success of a business depends on having good products, good prices, and good service. If you have those three things, people will come back. And we know from our Chamber doors and Chamber phones that people do come back often.” 

The Essential Elements of Success in Any Location 

In the end, every consumer is looking for the best option on some or all of those elements. They may be willing to pay a little more for better quality or service, or to sacrifice another aspect to reduce their overall cost. But it’s rare for a business to thrive without offering a balance of the three. Even businesses that check every box can struggle. 

“Unfortunately, most businesses don’t survive the first three years,” Hessel said. “But if they can survive that, you know, they’re going to be doing well. So we [the Chamber] try to give them a little bit more of a realistic sense of their needs: they’re going to have to market. They’re going to have to have 1-2 years of operating funds before they open their doors, and they need to not look for a profit for those first three years. That’s hard for people to take, and when you’re a dreamer you don’t even want to listen to that. So you may have one or two out of ten that have the ability to open a retail store and have success. But the majority really have to work on making it happen. That’s one reason I think Main Street is still so popular: people see all the success, and they think they can do it, too.” 

Part of the magic on Main Street is the added visibility festivals and activations provide. Events don’t just generate tens of thousands of visits in a single day: they also serve as a launchpad for ongoing customer relationships, if a vendor is positioned to make the most of them. For example, Rosie Bates – who teamed up with her husband to open a specialty dessert shop called Hip Pop – knows just how tantalizing a fresh popsicle can be on a sweltering festival day… and how to make the experience memorable enough to earn more sales after the fences come down. 

“The festival brings hundreds of thousands of people, so that’s good exposure for us; people who don’t come to Main Street during regular days, they come to the festival... we’re kind of hidden away from Main Street, so having a booth out there which directly faces the frontage road, that’s a lot of exposure. That’s why I decided to have a tent and the shop here,” said Bates, stepping away from her store for an interview during GrapeFest. “As far as the store is concerned, we bring in a little extra but not a huge amount. But whatever the booth brings, that’s all extra money. And we get a lot of repeat customers: they come and find us during the festival, and they come back year and year after.”

She isn’t alone. 

“Although the business has been here for twelve years, a lot of people didn’t know that we were here,” said Michelle Wilson, who took over operations at Giddens Art Gallery in 2023. “So this gives us major – free – marketing, and a lot of people come back. That’s what we experienced last year, and a lot of people have discovered us in the past two days.” 

Proving the Rule at Blagg Tire & Auto Service 

For retailers, the appeal of a festival is obvious. But what about business owners who schedule appointments more often than they take walk-ins? What happens to, say, an auto repair shop when the streets around it close? At Blagg Tire & Auto Service, the answer is simple: they just stick to what they do best. 

“We don’t close down during Main Street Fest or GrapeFest,” said Perry Leonard, who owned the Blagg service center in Grapevine along with several others in the company portfolio for over twenty years. “We have to access off Church or College, but our customers over the last thirty to thirty-five years have gotten used to that... people are going to be more destination driven when they come see us, and whether it’s in May or in September, they know to anticipate that weekend. And we’re not open on Saturday, anyway. So, really, I only have to deal with Friday for Main Street Fest and Thursday/Friday for GrapeFest.” 

For the record, Leonard didn’t throw in the towel on Saturdays because of festival traffic. The company decided to close on weekends because it was better for their staff. Leonard says the decision benefitted everyone in the company, which makes it great for workforce attraction and retention. But, most importantly, it was the right thing to do.

That’s his guiding principal for most decisions, and a key part of every business model on Main Street. Vendors here offer reliably good service and an excellent product selection at a competitive price; the exact formula for universal success. Festival crowds make their storefronts more visible, but it’s the goods and practices on display that turn one-time shoppers into lifelong clients. 

“People know where we are, they’re willing to have parking issues and other things that are going on because they like the level of care that they get at our business. And there’s many here in downtown that do the same thing,” Leonard said. “People just want relationships. They don’t want transactional things, they want relationships with people... it’s those relationships we’ve built within this community that make this community so strong, and that’s not just at Blagg Tire. That’s all through this community.” 

If you believe in the power of relationships, our community might be the right place for you and your business, too! For more stories from across the City, check out the ‘Growing Grapevine’ podcast; streaming here on our site or through your favorite app. You can also find us on social media, reach out directly to staff, or join our monthly newsletter for ongoing updates about the City of Grapevine.