About a decade ago in my little village of 4,000 people.....they made a decision to start up a Christmas Fest. The idea centered on a Saturday afternoon to evening party atmosphere in the center of the village....where a dozen clubs from the village would set up their tents and sell snacks and beverages. Entertainment would be provided and everyone would have 'fun'.
On paper, it looked fine. In practice, this was a fairly screwed up operation.
They'd open up around 3PM on that Saturday.....but the bulk of the crowd wouldn't show up til 6PM. I suspect mostly because of work or shopping. I should note, this typically occurred two weekends prior to Xmas.
While the food and beverage side could handle the minor crowd at 3PM, they really weren't equipped to handle the bigger crowd.
Typically by 7PM.....most of the tents were running out of food and drink. You'd stand there at gluhwine spot and be told that they'd just run out of the hot drink.
By 8PM, everyone was shutting down and hauling their tents away.
This week in the village, they made the decision to halt the Christmas Fest. The impression I get is that a number of the organizers really didn't have enthusiasm for this anymore, and the general complaints from the crowds led people to ask questions.
The chief problem I think.....is that we are simply a 10-minute bus ride from Wiesbaden, where they've got major operations set-up and will run a four-star Christmas Market until 11PM.
A big loss? No. In twenty years, some group will suggest to restart this and we'll go through the same business again.....only to discover that it just doesn't work well at the small village level.
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