‘Growing and growing,’ Third Friday in Ottawa completes biggest year yet

More than 1,000 people flocked, not just to Madison Street, but to all of Ottawa’s downtown Aug. 19 for the final Third Friday of the year.

The back to school-themed festival ended up the best-attended Third Friday, according to organizer Amanda Weygand, of Open Space Art Gallery and Studios. Families showed up for the artists, vendors and a bouncy castle.

“The energy on the street was just amazing,” Weygand said. “Everybody was happy. Everybody was having a good time, and we kept things as free as possible.”

The attendance didn’t just include businesses on Madison Street.

Weygand said it led to other businesses in the downtown making the most of the increased foot traffic: CatsEye had the Thyme food truck, Heartland by Hand had live music, and Rock Soul Love had readings in its storefront along with many other businesses participating with traditional art-themed beverages.

“I was definitely not expecting it to get this huge,” Weygand said. “It was a really big event and it was great, all positive and I had fellow business owners messaging me the next day to thank me for fighting for this.”

There were three Third Friday events this summer compared to the previous year when Weygand was able to run the events every third Friday from April through September. To have Madison Street closed for these events, business owners and artists appeared at a City Council meeting in February to express their support.

To go along with a well-attended City Council meeting of advocates for Third Friday, there were 1,200 signatures on a change.org petition that requested the city of Ottawa to allow Weygand to keep running Third Friday as she had been.

“It felt nice,” Weygand said. “I fought for a reason. People enjoy this event, so all this hard work, all the energy and stress, all of it was worth it becaues at the end of the day, our community came together and they all enjoyed this event together.”

The next step for Weygand is going to be sitting down with the rest of the business owners and talk about what they want Third Friday to look like going forward: Do they prefer three events or six? Is there an in-between that could work better?

Ottawa Police Chief Brent Roalson, who had safety concerns he expressed at the City Council meeting in February, said Third Friday went well this year and the police department is satisfied with the system in place.

“Quite frankly, the agreements we came to and working together was a big part of it,” Roalson said. “That’s what made it another success as opposed to something that became adversarial, which it didn’t need to be. They addressed our concerns as well as the businesses, so I think it was a perfect solution.”

The original safety concerns stemmed from having Madison Street closed for the few hours every Friday night, but Roalson said the officers assigned to the detail were able to handle it without an issue.

Weygand said the ideal for her would be four events throughout the warmer months, stretching the dates from May through August or June through September.

“I think the more events we have, the better it is for business,” Weygand said. “If we can get 1,000 people down here once a month for five months shopping in our stores? There’s nothing bad about that.”

Weygand said for right now, she’s not going to stress about next year until she has to.