Now that the Chinese Lantern Festival is completed, let’s hear some good news! The Plaza Fountainside Merchants would like to thank Mayor Kavanagh for helping make this festival happen.

We hope that this becomes an annual event that brings more people to Fountain Hills. The hustle and bustle that began around 2-3 p.m. each day brought much-needed business to merchants. When sales are up, tax dollars are generated.

We have one of the most popular attractions in the entire Phoenix area…the Fountain!

We need to capitalize on this attraction, and the Chinese Lantern Festival is just one of the many ways. Here are few comments from merchants.

Bob Dose and wife Cynthia of Card$mart had a good 10 days of business. New people to the area brought much needed business and are happy things like this happen at Fountain Park.

Merita at Euro Pizza had some of her highest revenue days. Standing room only on many nights can only mean that there were a lot of people to come see the festival and were hungry afterwards.

Keith at Heritage Cross Apparel noticed a significant uptick in traffic after 3 p.m. and on Saturdays.

Dave at Grapeables also thanks the new faces to his wine bar. It was a busy 10 days, he noted.

OYO Yogurt comments, “The Chinese Festival brought many folks to the area. Our sales showed a definite increase during the evening hours of the festival. We feel that future Chinese festivals will only improve each year and that the revenue generated by local merchants will show a significant increase.”

It is time for Fountain Hills to grow and prosper….Things like this festival will allow that to happen. Could things have been different as far as the festival setup is concerned? Absolutely. But with just a few adjustments we think everyone can be happy!