Owners and managers to showcase their businesses in downtown Blackfoot

BLACKFOOT — Business owners will show what they have to offer at an event that will bring people into Blackfoot’s downtown area.

“Downtown Summer Madness” has more than 30 different businesses taking part, aiming to draw community members into the area. The event will take place on June 8, starting at 2 p.m. until 7 p.m. that Saturday.

“If people go downtown, they’ll notice that there are so many small businesses and there are so many other things to do in Blackfoot that we kind of overlook,” said Julie Bench, the lead organizer of the event and co-owner of Tilden’s Co.

The idea to hold this event came about after downtown business owners finished their first Winter Madness in December. Bench, who organized that as well, thought that it would be even more successful in the summer.

“The winter one was really good, but it was just really cold at night because it got dark early,” Bench explained. Once March rolled around, Bench met with the Chamber of Commerce and then started organizing with the other businesses to hold a summer event.

Downtown Summer Madness will take place downtown with the participating business owners and managers running their own promotions and operating out of their brick and mortar locations. A few businesses with locations out of walking distance will have booths set up.

While regular traffic will be able to travel through the downtown, a portion of Broadway Street will be shut down if the Blackfoot City Council votes on June 4 to do so for the event.

People who attend will also be able to find food trucks, games and raffle drawings. These as well as the booths will either be found in the shut off section of street or in the Get Found First parking lot.

The way Bench sees it, people in Blackfoot don’t visit the downtown area often enough to see what it has to offer.

“Everyone’s thinking that there’s nothing to do in Blackfoot, but as I’ve been a business owner the last few years, I realized that there are so many different businesses and I’ve noticed that the city wants to promote small businesses and help grow the downtown area,” Bench said.

Bench thinks that people who come to Downtown Summer Madness will be surprised with the variety of businesses they find.

“There’s just a lot of fun things that even in the last five or 10 years have opened up,” Bench said. “There’s a lot in the small area of Downtown Blackfoot that I think people overlook easily.”