The Boothbay Harbor Region Chamber of Commerce held a Festival of Lights recap meeting Jan. 10 at the Boothbay Harbor Opera House.The many business owners and local patrons enjoyed a plethora of food from many of the businesses staying open for the festival. 

Patricia Royall, the Chamber’s executive director, paid many thanks to both town managers, Dan Bryer of Boothbay and Tom Woodin of Boothbay Harbor, for their fundamental involvement in the Festival of Lights.

“Without them, it wouldn’t have happened. Without the support of the towns, it wouldn’t happen, but the real heroes in all of this are the fire departments … (with buildings) depending on the bucket trucks to get the lights up. They really go out of the way to make this so special.”

Royall also thanked Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens for helping bring people to the downtown area and the nearly 20 non-profit organizations manning the new warming station in the Boothbay Harbor Fire Department, saying the station made it a “vast improvement” to give shelter to visitors waiting for the shuttles. According to Royall, despite often frigid temperatures and two nights of shutting down the Gardens, CMBG had a 4.7 percent increase in visitors this year, totaling over 78,500 visitors in all.

Stefa Normantas from Green Tree Events discussed the company’s role as well as the numbers coming through on the digital end. Acting as a support team, keeping the website and social media engaged, Normantas and her team helped set teams and bring together a unique brand that is reaching further in its second year.

Said Normantas, “Our role initially was to be part of a support team, here, to help pull together teams and help put together a brand. From last year to this year, our role was really to … let the community take it and run with it … What people really want is something to do and they want a focal point to give them the excuse for coming here … The fireworks was probably one of the most popular posts because people do want something to kind of give them an excuse to spend the day up here and give them a focal point.”

The three top referrals to the Festival of Lights website were the CMBG and Chamber of Commerce websites and the festival’s Facebook page. From September 2017 to the beginning of January 2018, there were over 137,000 website page views and over half a million Facebook impressions. Normantas highlighted the 53,000 video views, 23,000 post engagements, and followers from places such as Ireland, Croatia, Switzerland, Pakistan, Germany, Romania and Iraq on Facebook.

“It’s never too early to start talking,” Normantas said, suggesting that this year, businesses and organizations pull together a little more to stay in the know of what everybody is doing. She also stressed the importance of thinking about what worked and what didn’t, and how to engage next year.

Bonnie Stover of Tugboat Inn reported that business was up 25 percent from last year and she was able to keep 27 people on staff whereas last year, she was able to keep only 11 people. Julie Roberts said that after choosing at the last minute to stay open for more than just weekends, numbers were up a little bit from last year.

“It was so much fun,” said Roberts. “Everybody was so happy … It was like a Hallmark Christmas special.”

Kathrine Norcott, visitor member coordinator for the Chamber, stressed the importance of the warming station volunteers, especially students of Boothbay Region High School who particularly struck visitors. The station provided visitors with cookies, hot drinks, and coloring books as well as maps, cards and guides for people to plan the rest of their evening after coming back from the Gardens.

“It was a wonderful way as a community to show visitors how much we’re grateful that they’re coming here. That’s a great way to show that we do have a sense of community.”

Said Royall in her closing remarks, “This is a process and it is going to get better every year as long as we put the energy into making it better … It’s incumbant on us to start to take this festival as our own … and that means we need everyone’s involvement and everyone’s help.”