Sips in the City sees Main Street ‘thrive’
More than 350 visitors and residents crowded Main Street on Saturday for Butler Downtown’s first ‘Sips in the City’ event.
Organizer and Butler Downtown board member Mikayla Moretti said the event sold out almost a month ago.
“I believe we have over 350 people registered,” Moretti said. “So, it’s a good day for businesses to thrive, and especially our Main Street businesses.”
The event, she said, was all about showing off Butler’s many local businesses.
“The purpose of the event was to bring some new people to Main Street Butler, so . . . we paired vendors with local businesses and had them set up in their business shop,” Moretti said. “So, basically it was to get all of our participants in the doors of a bunch of Butler County businesses — we have over 15, and I believe the final number was 17.”
While 50 VIP tickets allowed attendees to join the fun an hour early, for most ticket-holders the event ran from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. starting at the Holly Pointe building.
“With the admission ticket, they would get a sample glass and wristband, which allowed them to go to each of the vendors and try their alcohol, and then they also had the opportunity to purchase from each vendor,” Moretti said. “Then most of our businesses, they also did coupons so it encourages people to purchase things from the location.”
Moretti said Butler Downtown began planning the event in January, and they were surprised by the level of interest it generated.
“I think the large amount of interest was really helpful in having those businesses decide to be a part of it,” Moretti said. “We hope they do well, we hope our vendors that we invited out do well and we just hope people have a good day.”
Dave and Rheiannon Crispen said they were having a good day as they left Mico’s Kitchen for a wine sampling.
“Supporting local business, and getting out with friends — that’s the big thing of it all,” Dave said. “It’s a good way to socialize.”
Rheiannon agreed, saying the event was a good way of “getting out with friends and being on Main Street.”
Butler native Ben Hill and Alicia DeWitt, sporting Pittsburgh Pirates tees, said they drove in all the way from their current home in West Virginia.
“We always look for, like, local events and things like that, and this came up and we thought it’d be fun,” Hill said. “We obviously went to the Pirate’s game, so we made a whole weekend out of this.”
DeWitt said she was impressed with the turnout and local engagement at the event. Hill said, for him, it was quite literally a walk down memory lane.
Moretti said Butler Downtown’s mission was to support local businesses and that the support and collaboration they saw from Sips in the City was encouraging.
“It’s really a partnership between our organization and them, so the more businesses that, you know, have good communication with us and are willing to be a part of days like this, I think that will help us help Butler thrive,” she said.
She said she was excited to see this first-time event sell out so quickly, and that the group is already planning on making it annual.
“It’s very exciting, considering it’s our first one and we capped the tickets — we can do better next year,” Moretti said. “We’re definitely trying to make this an annual thing, and we’ve had such good feedback.”
