Main Street Lorain accepting business applications for Second Saturday events

For the past three years, Main Street Lorain has worked with downtown businesses on First Friday events along Broadway.

That is changing, said Max Schaefer, executive director of Main Street Lorain.

Schaefer said Main Street Lorain will make a change this summer.

Starting in June, Main Street Lorain will host Second Saturday events throughout the summer.

The goal, however, still is the same: feature downtown Lorain and its gallery of businesses to as many people as possible, he said.

“We’re actually shifting from First Fridays to Second Saturdays,” Schaefer said. “I’ve been listening to some of the businesses, obviously having tried First Fridays for three years (we’ve been) learning a lot about what works best, what doesn’t work.”

The shift comes not only in response to downtown businesses, but a need to keep foot traffic flowing throughout the weekend, according to Schaefer.

Friday already was the most popular day for visiting downtown Lorain thanks to other events like Rockin’ on the River, he said.

“We’re shifting to try and focus a bit more on bringing folks another day of the week to downtown Lorain, besides Fridays,” Schaefer said. “A lot of people come downtown on Friday night.

“That’s great and we want to continue working with them. But, I think there was a general interest in seeing more folks on another day.”

Schaefer said the response from businesses so far has been solid, with even more likely to join in.

The list of participating business is similar to the First Friday series, but not exactly the same.

“We’re reaching out to more vendors, different vendors that we haven’t engaged with in the past,” Schaefer said. “The space isn’t really too much of an issue.

“We’ll be having some live music. We have been canvassing the neighborhood and letting small businesses that are established here know about this.”

Schaefer said he hopes the newer businesses will help expand the outreach of downtown Lorain’s weekend scene for adults and children.

Main Street Lorain also is heavily focused on making the new events family-oriented, he said.

The Palace Theatre, 617 Broadway in downtown Lorain, will be featured on each of the four dates, Schaefer said.

“We’re partnering with the Palace,” he said. “At the end of each event, the Palace is going to be showing a matinee movie for folks to kind of cap the event.”

Main Street Lorain’s Second Saturday events for 2024 are scheduled for June 8, July 13, Aug. 10 and Sept. 14.

All events will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

More information on this summer’s schedule of events is available at www.mainstreetlorainohio.org.