Organizers of this year's first Roc Holiday Village are still reviewing how it went, but the general consensus is it exceeded expectations and they'll definitely be bringing it back in 2019.
That's according to co-founder Kelli Marsh, who says Roc Holiday Village drew around 120 thousand people to downtown Rochester over the 11-day event.
``I think the feeling is that everything went fantastic. We're just very grateful that we had so much community support and support from our sponsors to make such a great event a really big success."
Roc Holiday Village featured a number of events, including a shopping village with local merchants, free ice skating, live music, free crafts for the kids, Hanukah and Kwanzaa celebrations and Santa's Workshops.
Marsh says she and her partners in the venture wanted to bring Santa Claus back to downtown Rochester just like when they were young when old Saint Nick visited Midtown Plaza on an annual basis.
``I think it did bring people out from all of the suburbs out to a central place, just like back when Midtown was open, it was a place for people to go, and now there's a place to celebrate and be together again down there," she said.
Roc Holiday Village featured:
· A shopping village featured 20 local food and merchandise vendors
· 2 mini market days presented goods for sale from 32 local vendors
· Free ice skating and rentals
· Santa's Workshop featured an expensive model train display, section of the Midtown Monorail, visits and photos with Santa, milk and cookies compliments of Wegmans, and kazoos sold to benefit Camp Good Days and Special Times.
· Free crafts for kids held every weekend Gingerbread House
· Hanukah and Kwanzaa celebrations
· Ice skating demonstrations and curling demos
· Free live music in The Lodge Bar and Restaurant
· Breakfast with Santa
· Popular cozy winter Igloos that could be reserved by the hour with private food and beverage service sold out in 48 hours
· Four pop-up restaurants in The Lodge
- The event also collected nearly 600 gifts for distribution to local families.