Ypsi DDA Promotions Committee begins planning for next year

By David Gomez
Dec. 15, 2009    ·    3:39 p.m.

The Ypsilanti Downtown Development Authority’s Promotions Committee met Friday to discuss the ways it could promote a positive attitude toward the downtown area.

The meeting began with Linda French taking the helm as the DDA’s Promotions Committee Chair after a nomination from committee member Bob Barnes.

A discussion of the recent Starlight Shopping Spree was the next order of business. French said labeling the spree as a pure shopping event could be misleading.

“There isn’t much to do as far as a real shopping spree,” she said. “We don’t want patrons to have a bad opinion because there isn’t enough real shopping.”

Teresa Gillotti, Michigan State University Extension Community and Economic Development Educator, said the committee should market a positive attitude toward downtown to the many different groups of people in Ypsilanti to make downtown events like the Starlight Spree more successful.

Many in the group said children’s activities are a good way to create a successful event.

“People are always looking for things to do with their kids,” French said.

The theme of a winter wonderland was brought up many times by virtually all of the committee members. Activities for the event included carriage rides, ice skating, hot chocolate stands, free holiday photos, a pet parade and ice sculptures. A day of free admission to all the local museums to promote with the winter wonderland event was also considered.

Gillotti asked the committee to gather information about who came to the Starlight Spree and use it to build a winter event in the future.

The committee also talked about events it wants to undertake for the rest of the year. Ideas brought up in committee included a Valentine’s Day event, a Halloween event and a pub crawl that could take place during the Michigan Summer Beer Festival.

French suggested the whole city should decorate around both downtowns to give a flavor of what future festivals or events are coming and many on the committee said signage was important to promote events in downtown.

Committee member Scotty James felt that there should be a booth or attraction outside of admission-based festivals and events with information on local, free attractions. He said it would attract people who don’t want to pay to get into festivals, but would still bring business to the downtown area.

“The best thing they ever did for Elvis Fest was when they had a dunk tank outside of the park in downtown," James said. "It still gave people who didn’t want to pay to get into Elvis Fest a sense of what Elvis Fest is.”

The committee will use promotions planning in the coming year to try to persuade different groups of citizens to hang out in Ypsilanti’s downtown area and dissuade locals from driving to surrounding areas like Ann Arbor.

As the meeting wrapped up committee members were asked to come up with more ideas for future events. The members will bring their ideas to the next Promotions Committee meeting and project groups will be tasked with planning events for the coming year.

For Ypsilanti DDA committee meeting dates please check the Ypsilanti Citizen’s calendar.