Retailers Report Record Sales From Dickens Fest

Local merchants have indicated that this past Dickens Festival was a tremendous success, with some saying that it was a record-breaking event.

John Cotter, a co-owner at , may have been the most enthusiastic and one of the biggest gainers.

“This is the best and second best days I’ve ever had,” he said. “It was a record-breaking weekend.”

Cotter said that over the course of the weekend he did two-and-a-half times better than the average of the past three Dickens festivals.

Weather may have played a large role in the weekend’s success. According to weather.com the temperature reached a high of 55 degrees on that Sunday and there was only light cloud coverage.

Barbara Ransome, director of operations for the , said, “This is a fair weather village. When you have a huge festival like the Dickens and the weather is perfect, it exemplifies things further. It just adds, adds, adds.”

Marge McCuen was t in light of the recent economy. The owner reported that she did quite well over the weekend

“It made you think that retail was alive again,” she said. “That everyone’s not shopping online. It was very good. Beyond that, I hope it stays that way.”

Stacy Davidson, the owner of , said she had one of the best weekends of the year, but feels that East Main Street gets left out of the festivities.

“Customers felt that there wasn’t a Dickens Fest on East Main Street,” Davidson said. “There weren’t carriage rides down East Main. People don’t realize that there’s stores down here. If the carriage comes down here, people can see that we’re here and how beautiful we are.”

Ransome pointed out that the carriage rides do originate on East Main Street at the and does travel quite a bit down the road.