A new month-long immersive experience in McMinnville aims to drive foot traffic to local shops and restaurants during the typically slow post-holiday season.
Tourism and Marketing Manager Jordan Pupols organized “Alice in Winterland: The Heart of WinterQuest” to encourage February spending. The festival features a storybook trail, themed decorations, and specialty items at businesses throughout the downtown district.
“We all know that the post-holiday season slump for our restaurants and retail stores is very real before we pick up into the spring season when we start seeing a little more visitors and people are out and about,” Pupols said.
Pupols said keeping spending within the community supports essential services like the fire department, police station, and educational system. This initiative marks the first time McMinnville has hosted a month-long immersive experience of this nature.
Participants can pick up a scavenger hunt postcard and visit ten different locations to read chapters of the story. Shoppers who spend ten dollars at participating businesses earn entry into a drawing for three grand prizes valued at $700.
“We were just looking for a way to really drive people into our small local shops and our small local restaurants and have them spending their money there in a time that they probably typically wouldn’t,” Pupols said.
While the scavenger hunt is free, specific scheduled activities include a STEAM event at Magness Library and Mad Hatter Tea Parties at Falcon Rest Mansion and Gardens. Pupols said the interest has extended beyond the local area, with inquiries coming from Nashville.
“We’re already being asked ‘Are you going to do it next year?’, and ‘my businesses and I met and we were looking to do something next year’,” Pupols said. “Maybe not Alice in Wonderland again, but a different theme, and you know, also work with the local theater group so that the plays that they’re putting on throughout that month coincide and match the theme that we have downtown.”
“It just creates this feeling of community, that something that you can be proud of, that you’re keeping your dollars at home and you’re supporting your small business owners and supporting the heart of the community,” Pupols said.
The Alice in Winterland festival continues through the end of February.