Hopscotch Music Festival rocks Raleigh
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- The music spilled into the streets of downtown Raleigh Friday evening along with thousands of visitors from all over the country ready to dance, eat, and spend money at the Hopscotch Music Festival.
"So far so good. It's a great turnout," said organizer Travis Janovich.
Click Here to read more about Hopscotch
It has become one of the biggest weekends of the year for the Busy Bee Cafe. Owners threw a day party to get people in their doors even earlier.
"It is a huge boom to our business for sure. We buy a ton of extra beer. We bring in a ton of extra staff and a lot of extra food," said co-owner Chris Powers.
Click Here for a band schedule
More than 20,000 people are expected in downtown over the course of the weekend. Restaurants and bars plan to be packed through Sunday.
"It's an all-hands-on-deck type of situation," said Powers.
Hopscotch is the city's first major event since a sidewalk curfew went into effect last month.
The change closes off city sidewalks to restaurants and bars at midnight Sunday through Thursday and 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.
Festival organizers hope the new rule won't affect the bottom line for businesses.
Click here for a map of the venues
"Certainly concerned us and worries us, and we want to make sure that we continue to do events like this in the future," said Janovich.
Now in its sixth year, he hopes big name musical acts like Dwight Yoakam and a variety of genres made up of 140 local and national bands will continue to draw in large crowds and the dollars to keep downtown businesses booming.
Janovich said festival organizers plan to conduct their own economic impact study later this year.
Fayetteville Street will close at Davie Street for the weekend concerts, but otherwise everything else will be open and running downtown.
The concerts are at City Plaza and the Convention Center from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., then at every bar and nightclub around downtown until 2 a.m.
