Letter: Where did all the people go?

The July 22 River Falls Journal front page showed an aerial view of Farm Technology Days. Tens of thousands of people attended the event that was just two miles south of River Falls on Highway 29. How is it possible that so few of these people found their way into the River Falls businesses?

This event has been planned for two years. River Falls businesses bought more food and merchandise to sell to these new customers and they wasted their money because the customers never showed up.

What strategies were implemented to bring the customers into River Falls? Farm Technology Days ended at 5 p.m. each day and yet few of these tens of thousands of people just two miles south found their way into River Falls’ bars, restaurants and shops.

What happened? Did other towns do a better job of advertising?

It was as if River Falls didn’t even exist! Where was the free shuttle running between the event and River Falls? Where were the roadside signs directing customers into the town?

If River Falls is going to survive and thrive it needs to be able to attract customers into the Main Street businesses.

The town and those in charge of attracting customers into the town need to debrief on this event and determine what went wrong. Where did these thousands of people go and why did they go there?

We won’t get the Farm Technology Days event again but I hope there will be future opportunities and we need to learn what went wrong.

Tags: opinion, letter, farmtech