By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Firefly Nights is adding some new tricks to the downtown festival to provide more treats for kids and adults alike.
The Firefly Nights Fall Festival will be held Friday, Oct. 19 from 6 to 10 p.m. in downtown Bowling Green.
The festival continues the series of events offered throughout the summer. Now it’ll change colors just a bit to fit the season.
For kids that means a costume contest, trunk and treat, pumpkin decorating, and a kiddie tractor pull.
Dustin Galish and Tree No Leaves will perform at the Firefly Nights All Festival.
For adults that means a farmers market, more music, free yoga classes, and beer gardens on both ends of Main Street. Adults are invited to come in costume as well.
The fall festival took shape through parallel discussions by the Firefly organizers and the downtown merchants.
Mary Hinkelman, former Downtown Bowling Green director and now Chamber of Commerce executive director, said the concerns about downtown trick or treat were raised by merchants.
Downtown trick or treating had outgrown the streets. She estimated about 2,000 children trick-or-treated downtown last year. That many youngsters accompanied by adults jammed the sidewalks, causing safety concerns.
The merchants wondered: What if they could block off the street as they do for Firefly Nights?
Hinkelman took the idea to the board of directors and they approved. So did the Firefly Nights organizers who were already considering doing one more festival in fall.
“I think it was the zeitgeist of the time,” said Laura Wicks of Grounds for Thought. “You know how small towns work — good ideas just grow.”
A new partnership was born. Laura Wicks said the idea was: “Why not make it more of a family friendly activity instead of just filling up a bag of candy?”
So the Fall Firefly Nights will be held instead of downtown trick or treat, which had typically been on the Thursday before Halloween.
In place of children going to door to door to businesses, Thayer Family dealerships is bringing cars downtown, and treats will be doled out from the trunks. Trinity United Methodist, a couple blocks off Main Street, will also hold its trunk or treat event that night from 6 to 8 p.m.
In the Firefly costume contest, judges roaming the crowd will select 40 kids — 20 from earlier in the night, 20 from later — based on the creativity and effort put into their outfi.
Firefly Nights will also offer those attractions that brought people downtown on the third Fridays during the summer, even when the weather was wet.
Bands have been booked for stages at each end of Main Street.
Performing will be:
North Stage
• 6:30 p.m. — Lucian Townes
• 7:30 p.m. — Two Shoes Jackson
• 9 p.m. — Tree No Leaves
South Stage
• 6 p.m. — Elia Rose
• 7 p.m. — Todd Elson
• 8 p.m. — Patrick McGee
• 9 p.m. — Three Two Many
There will be a full complement of food trucks there to appeal to a variety of palates from sausage lovers to vegans. The trucks will be relocated on the north end with the festival’s footprint.
Main Street will be blocked off from Washington Street to Clay Street, about a block and a half longer than before.
All this takes volunteers. The summer events, Hinkelman said, required more than 100 volunteers, and because of the increased activities the fall festival will need more.
Gayle Walterbach, of Coyote Beads, said some volunteers have shown up each time, wanting to know what they can do to help.
Wicks said that clients at the Zepf Center have come out each week early on to do a lot of the heavy lifting required to get the event set up.
Those volunteers have been out rain or shine making sure the event happened.
And people were on the street, rain or shine, enjoying a night on the town.
