To Neighbors, the Chadds Ford Community, the Businesses, and Friends:
What was planned to be a beautiful unique spring event offering treasures, antiques and a beautiful spring day setting of food and music turned into a very, very unexpected amount of attendance, traffic issues and regrettable impact to the community. In the year past, there was nowhere near the attendance and we did not even use the large parking field that was for this year's event. We prepared by having the police at the parking entrance but since we had no idea of the exponential attendance since the last event ( the Barn Market was also part of Chadds Ford Days in September), we had to call the state police the day of to assist. By the time they were here, the gridlock had occurred and people took it upon themselves to walk along the highway and park in areas not permitted. That was our mistake. Our organized large events always have additional police presence and traffic control, and we simply did not know that so many people would attend.
We know for our large events that have been around for 50 years that attendance can be high. We simply had no idea that this event would draw similar attendance with the power of the social media reach.
We know that having the state police at Route 1 and Route 100 and potentially in other areas to be identified with their input, along with secondary parking with shuttle service to ensure people are off the roads and safe are critical improvements. We will also have no-parking signs made and provided to all neighbors and businesses in the community.
These solutions do not take away from the impact of Saturday to the community. There are no excuses here only resolution and commitments. We learned the power of social media, and we are very very sorry that this impacted the neighbors, the businesses and the community. We sincerely apologize for the unexpected response and we are 100 percent committed to resolving this for this and any other events.
With my sincerest apologies and appreciation of our town and community,
Kendal Reynolds
President, Chadds Ford Historical Society
(10 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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