Great Neck Plaza street fair not happening

Teri West
Kids racing down the slides at the Great Neck Plaza Street Fair and Auto Fest in 2018. (Photo by Jessica Parks)

Great Neck Plaza’s longtime annual street fair is taking a hiatus this year.

Due to regularly declining attendance, the village decided to take a year to re-evaluate the event and determine whether it should continue or be replaced by something the community might enjoy more, said Ron Edelson, executive director of the Great Neck Plaza Business Improvement District.

“The makeup of Great Neck has evolved over the past decade or two,” he said. “We had done that same street festival for close to 20 or more years and it was time for a change, and maybe that’s what the community was telling us.”

The event is the most expensive one the village puts on, so to continue spending money on something declining in popularity no longer made sense, Edelson said.

Every year fewer people were showing up and fewer merchants were choosing to stay open, he said. A decade ago the fair was so popular it was difficult to walk through the crowds, Edelson said.

“That has not been the case for the past three or four years,” he said.

Business district leaders will begin evaluating their options for the future of the street fair in the fall, he said.

“It doesn’t mean there never will be another street fair,” Edelson said. “It just means we have to revisit it to see if we can get the type of crowds we were getting — years ago.”

In the meantime, the village is holding two events in September to see how they fare during that time of year, he said.

The first will include a screening of “Avengers: Endgame” and the second will have a performance from Beatles tribute band The Liverpool Shuffle.

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