Folk festival a boon to hotels, retailers throughout Bangor area

The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront has provided an added business boost to area hotels, and local shops and restaurants are hoping they, too, will see plenty of visitors.

Hotels and motels in the region were already benefiting from the loss of two Bangor accommodations in the past year.

“Every place from here to Lucerne to Bar Harbor says they haven’t seen a year like this for a decade. They’re all booked,” said Richard Greene, executive director of the Greater Bangor Convention & Visitors Bureau and Bangor’s City Council chairman. “They wish they had a hundred more rooms.”

Greene said the room shortage in Bangor has been a boon to neighboring and distant towns, with visitors staying as far away as Waterville.

“It’s pushing visitors out into the outlying community and filling up all their rooms. … People get to see more of this area we call home,” Greene said. He said the situation is not stopping people from making the trip to Bangor for this weekend’s folk festival.

The lodging crunch began in June 2006, when the 65-room Main Street Inn on Main Street in Bangor was razed to make way for the permanent Hollywood Slots at Bangor, which is still under construction. In March of this year, the 121-room Holiday Inn on Main Street was torn down for the same reason.

The room shortage in Bangor will be alleviated in the next year by three hotels now under construction: a 92-room Marriott Courtyard at 200 Sylvan Road, a 135-room Hilton Garden Inn along an extension of Haskell Road, and a 152-room hotel in the Hollywood Slots at Bangor complex.

Greene said the fact that many guests have to stay at a distance from Bangor means more business for car rental companies, gas stations and convenience stores.

In downtown Bangor, local shopkeepers are hoping they, too, will see more customers than usual.

“We don’t see a huge increase in business [during the folk festival], but we see a huge increase in new customers,” said Laurie Schweikert, who owns The Grasshopper Shop with her husband, Rick. Revenues aside, Schweikert said she likes the festive atmosphere and new faces the festival brings to her store.

Richard Vigue, owner of Rebecca’s gift shop, said he sees an increase in business on the days immediately after the folk festival, when some visitors stick around to shop and locals have waited for traffic to die down. On Saturday and Sunday, most people are distracted by the musical acts and cultural exhibits, Vigue said.

“If you’re going to be walking around the folk fest, you don’t want to carry around a print from Rebecca’s,” Vigue said, laughing. “In the long run, I think it does benefit us. It brings tons of people to see our downtown, and hopefully many people are seeing Rebecca’s.”

The Sea Dog Brewing Co. restaurant said the folk festival brings the busiest weekend of the year.

“We’re preparing to be busy inside and outside,” said Kyle Grey, a manager at the Sea Dog. Grey said the restaurant is stocking lots of food and T-shirts and will sell a few menu items outside.

Bangor Mall General Manager James Gerety said it’s difficult to tell if increased traffic at the mall can be attributed to the folk festival or back-to-school shopping. Either way, he said, the festival is a great opportunity for all local stores and restaurants to capture some extra business.

“If we didn’t have the folk fest, we wouldn’t have the influx of visitors to the Bangor area,” Gerety said.