Fall Festival brings autumnal fun to downtown Three Rivers

By Robert Tomlinson
News Director

THREE RIVERS — Downtown Three Rivers was bustling with activity last weekend, as a new festival brought the autumn season to Main Street and Portage Avenue.
Saturday, Oct. 11 was the first-ever Fall Festival in downtown Three Rivers, which featured a few fall-themed activities, food vendors, craft vendors, live music, and kids’ activities and attractions.
The event was a collaboration between the Three Rivers Downtown Development Authority and HG Real Estate, who planned the event in just the span of a few months. Jesse Oman and John Harrold, two real estate agents at HG, came up with the idea of the festival as a way to bring people to downtown during the fall season, when not a lot of events are going on.
“We’re trying to bring business back to downtown, make it more lively, make people want to come hang out,” Oman said. “The whole idea was to have things and spaces where people want to stay and hang out, not just come, shop, and go.”
Some of the fall-themed activities included a caramel apple-making station, Bingo, a pumpkin cakewalk, and a painting table for kids and families. There was also live music from Allison Downey, The Quartet from the Kalamazoo Academy of Rock, and the Three Rivers German Band. Useless Creatures Brewing Company and the Riviera Theatre Bar were also open with beer specials, and HG Real Estate had a seating area, jokingly dubbed a “Men’s Babysitting Area,” for people to watch college football games on TV that were on during the festival.
Activities for kids included an inflatable obstacle course and rock-climbing wall, as well as a visit from the Potawatomi Zoo, which brought a few animals in to HG Real Estate as part of their Zoo To You program. Oman said the zoo visit was one of the most popular spots during the festival.
“Everybody loved the animals, so it was a good idea,” Oman said.
Both Oman and Harrold said they were pleased with the turnout for the first edition of the festival, with Harrold saying it was “better than we thought.”
“I think it’s turned out amazing, a lot better than we thought, than we expected, anticipated, you know, for the first year. I’m pleased, and we’re pleased,” Harrold said. “Next year, we’re going to try to get some more sponsors and have a little more time to plan.”
The relative success of the event comes as Harrold said the idea for the festival came to the duo just a few months ago, with the majority of planning taking place over the last couple of months.
“Her and I got the idea, I don’t know, probably four months ago, three or four months ago, and she motivated me, I motivated her to do this,” Harrold said. “We just started planning and just knocking on doors, making phone calls. … The DDA were really, really great to work with, and they helped every step of the way.”
DDA Executive Director Angie Metty said she was pleased with how the Fall Fest went.
“It’s another free event to bring to the community, and we had great weather, which made it a lot easier. Once fall gets here, we don’t get a lot of warm days to be able to do this. It really feels like fall,” Metty said.
She added that working with Oman and Harrold on the event was “pretty good.”
“It went together really well, and we like businesses to host events; it helps us out a lot,” Metty said, noting she hopes it will continue next year. “I would like to keep this setup, but even bigger and better. More vendors, maybe more food trucks, but this is pretty good.”
As for Harrold, he said he already has some ideas for how to plan for a possible sequel next year, including looking for more sponsorships and having more time to prep.
“I’ve already had people come up to me saying, hey, can I do this next year,” Harrold said. “We’ll have more time to plan, more time to prep, more time to get sponsors.”
Overall, Harrold said, in the future, he hopes the Fall Festival can be a staple downtown for the community that can help local families create memories during the fall season.
“This is what it’s all about, really: Bringing families together, making memories, laughing,” Harrold said. “That’s what we hope, just to kind of keep things going and make memories with families and keeping it community-friendly.”