Master sculptor Peter Vogelaar at Kelowna Made.

(CARLI BERRY / iNFOnews.ca)

There’s no question that life is lively in downtown Kelowna in the summer with Bernard Avenue closed to traffic as cafes overflow into the street and entertainment flourishing in places like City Park and Kerry Park.

Now that summer is over, city staff and others are doing the big “debrief” on what went right and what went wrong and where things are headed in future years.

The summer kicked off on July 1 with the closure of the first five blocks of Bernard Avenue. It was dubbed Meet Me on Bernard.

“We thought it improved on last year,” Chris Babcock, the city of Kelowna’s event development supervisor, told iNFOnews.ca. “We had more activities, more events happening. We didn’t have to deal with COVID or excessive heat or smoke this year.”

That doesn’t mean it all went as well as was hoped.

“We did have some feedback from, in particular, the 500 block, about it being not as animated as they would have liked to see.”

The first two blocks of Bernard, heading east from Okanagan Lake, have lots of restaurants that benefit from the larger patios in the summer but their number dwindles in the 400 and 500 blocks. To counter that, the city scheduled a number of events to liven up those areas.

“Anecdotally, the 500 block was a not as animated as people would hope at certain times of the day,” Babcock said. “If you went down there you would see that. But other times, especially in the morning when certain restaurants are open for business – there are breakfast restaurants down there – it was attended quite well.”

A survey has been conducted of businesses on the street and there will be visits to other merchants to get their feedback before making plans for next year.

A similar “debriefing” is happening after the launch of the Kelowna Made festival that’s envisioned to, eventually, become a week-long event.

“We considered it a success for its inaugural year,” Babcock said about the Aug. 27 event in City Park. “We were planning to start it small. We wanted to just get a base and be able to work from that base and evolve it for future years.”

Events at Kelowna Made ranged from face painting to sandcastle building, beach volleyball to an artisan showcase.

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There was no one big event to gauge attendance by but at a rough estimate, Babcock said 4,000 people may have passed through the park during the course of the day.

“We didn’t have great weather so we didn’t even have the regular beachgoers there,” he said. “The people who came down to City Park that day came down for the event itself.”

He did hear concerns that many people didn’t know about Kelowna Made, even though it did get coverage in some media.

“It may not have reached a certain demographic,” Babcock said. “What that demographic is, I don’t know yet but, then again, in the first year we’re just trying to figure out how to reach the masses. I think word of mouth, as this thing keeps going from year to year, will increase and it will hopefully become a staple in our community.”

It will continue to focus on local talent, whether that be farmers' markets, arts and crafts or music. That doesn’t mean that outside participants won’t be included in the future but may be limited to a certain percentage.

“The main thing we don’t want to lose sight of is, it’s named Kelowna Made for a reason,” Babcock said. "We want this to be a celebration for locals. Of course, tourists are welcome but we want to showcase our local talent and flavours and it has to be a family-oriented event.”

A key addition to “animating” that area of Bernard Avenue, will be some kind of redevelopment of Kerry Park, which already hosts musical events.

That redevelopment is tied to the construction of the Westcorp hotel at the foot of Queensway. That’s returning to city council later this month for a development permit and Westcorp hopes to have shovels in the ground next year.

READ MORE: Plans to build highrise hotel on downtown Kelowna waterfront moving ahead

“We, as the event services office, hope to have some participation in those discussions,” Babcock said. “We do believe that’s a great spot for live entertainment and community engagement.”

Also further down the road, and further removed by distance, is the expected redevelopment of Island Stage in Waterfront Park.

The city is just starting an assessment of that project so no changes will be made until at least 2024.

The other thing that will further “animate” all of downtown will be the return to other significant events that didn’t run this year because planners were still concerned about COVID restrictions. Those include things like the Apple Triathlon, the Great Okanagan Beer Festival and the Okanagan Marathon, Babcock said.

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