Local businesses see huge increase in sales thanks to National Folk Festival

SALISBURY, Md. – Beautiful weather, plus a big push from the city of Salisbury to shop local during the folk festival equaled some major success for businesses in the area.

“We knew it would be busy, but we were blown away,” said Angello’s Scoops store manager Nicole Moore.

Businesses in downtown Salisbury scored big over the weekend. Raking in thousands of customers during one of the city’s most popular festivals of the year.

“We sold over 2,200 ice cream cones and I think we had equal that plus some of customers coming through and buying merchandise from our gift side. It was amazing,” said Moore.

“The weekend was great. We started off strong with the Friday shows. We got a great crowd considering it was raining prior to the event,” said Old Towne Deli store owner  Vicente Hernandez.

Businesses tell 47 ABC it was like night and day  compared to last years’ festival when they didn’t see as much profit.

“Business was much slower last year than we thought it would be and we kind of felt neglected from the community a little bit. But this year it is a completely different story,” said Moore.

We’re told there was another major component that helped boost sales. And that was the dedication of city officials who made sure visitors and festival goers shopped local during the event to help support businesses.

“They were really, really instrumental on social media advertising, putting up fliers around town, and just really pushing that people shop local ,” said Hernandez.

“It was a constant line from lunch time till closing out the door,” said Moore.

And even though the folk festival is now over, businesses say they hope to see this trend continue with shopping local, to get customers to invest back in the community.