Aurora, Central City and Stromsburg host special events
Back by popular demand, three area communities are making plans for a combined event inviting area patrons to shop, dine and explore in Central Nebraska.
Small Town Market Days had a strong debut in October of last year, then followed up with a spring version of the same concept in April. Businesses in Aurora, Central City and Stromsburg are once again rolling out the red carpet, simultaneously, in hopes of generating some energy and excitement Oct. 7-8.
“New this year will be a couple of capstone events, sort of end of the weekend events that should be a lot of fun,” said Loren Berthelsen, co-owner of The Grape Frog in Aurora who helped get the ball rolling for last year’s Small Town Market Days debut. “Here in Aurora, we were going to do a street dance, but chances for weather can be weird, so I decided to move it to an indoor venue.”
On Saturday, Oct. 8, doors will open at 7 p.m. at the Farr Building on the Hamilton County Fairgrounds, with the band Bases Loaded playing from 9 p.m. to midnight.
“We’ll have food trucks starting at 7 and will run to 11 that night, and then at 9 p.m. the band will play,” he said. “It’s a very popular local band (out of Kearney) so there will be dancing and music and all sorts of fun stuff going on.”
Berthelsen said the event will be for those 18 and over, with ID required for access to the bar.
“I really wanted a keystone event at the end of this, to sort of cap it all off,” he explained. “Even if you don’t go to any of the things during Small Town Market Days you’ve still got things you can do that will be really enjoyable, and people love a good dance.”
Central City is planning an afternoon fall festival that same day, hosted by the Wild Roots Greenhouse and Market, with food trucks, hay rides, pumpkin painting, live music and all sorts of shopping specials.
“We focus on our chamber member businesses, so they are the VIP businesses in our event,” said Nancy McGinnis, chamber director in Central City. “One of the things that’s kind of cool in Central City is the firecracker sculptures that people can look for that signify they are a VIP member. We started that last year and people really enjoy that.”
During the day both Friday and Saturday, people are invited and encouraged to shop, dine and explore in the three host communities, which Berthelsen said should give a boost to local businesses.
“Stores will be open Friday and Saturday, whatever hours they want to be open, which we’ll put on the website,” he said, referring to smalltownmarketdays.com. “We have over 90 places to shop, dine and explore between the three cities.”
Details, maps, VIP pass info and a complete list of things to see and do can be found on the website as well.
One of the new activities introduced in April was a drawing for gift baskets, which Berthelsen said is back for the fall celebration.
“When people go to the various businesses they can pick up an entry card and fill it out and deal with the business, so the more businesses they visit the more chances they have to win,” he explained. “It was really exciting last year, because we had people from as far away as Lincoln, Hastings, Grand Island, York and someone from Burwell, so just from all over which is really a testament to how people are looking for things to do.”
Berthelsen is convinced that small towns have a lot to offer, so coordinating an event like Small Town Market Days helps showcase all there is to see, do and buy.
“I mean, we’ve got a really dynamic community here,” he said. “People really like to shop here and they’re looking for reasons to do so.”
Maps will be available in each of the communities, showing participants where all they can go for shopping specials.
“It’s one thing to go shopping. Everybody likes to shop and everybody likes to eat, so that’s not a problem,” he said. “The explore part, though, we have a lot of fun with historical things that our cities have which are really, really amazing.”
Berthelsen said he remembers, for example, watching a couple on the courthouse lawn in Aurora toward the end of last year’s event, obviously taking advantage of information provided on the tri-fold map.
“They had their guide open and they were looking at the monuments that are listed in the guide,” he recalled. “I just thought that was really cool.”
A year ago, Berthelsen was one of the lead organizers of the first Small Town Market Days, tapping into some of the energy and ideas generated by a newly formed Retail Renegades group. The mission grew from planning an Aurora event to a two-day gig including Central City and Stromsburg where chamber members there signed on as a way to introduce people from outside the area to the towns themselves.
“We just don’t want to do this as our thing,” Berthelsen said at the time. “We really want this to be about small towns.”
By having each business do its own events, Berthelsen noted that visitors can do as much or as little as they want. People can jump between the towns or spend an entire day in one area.
“I think the more we do things like this the more it raises the profile of our community,” he said. “We have a lot of events going on here during the year and it’s really cool.”