♦ Shop Seattle Gems 2018 ♦

On Shop Small Saturday, Beacon Business Alliance Hosted the Shop Seattle Gems Pop-Up Festival on Beacon Hill—and Had a Spectacular Time Celebrating Small Business!

 

 

Beacon Hill showed up to celebrate South Seattle “Gems” on Small Business Saturday, November 24, 2018, braving the fall chill and skies threatening rain. From 11 AM to 5 PM on Roberto Maestas Festival Street and Plaza Roberto Maestas (adjacent to Beacon Hill’s Link light rail station), the Beacon Hill community and visitors enjoyed a live soundtrack spun by DJ WD4D while they visited with local merchants and shopped for everything from herbal tea and bath salts to cozy hand-knit wool hats to original art and prints by local artists.

All the while, Crick Lont (aka Dozer) laid brightly-colored paint through stencils on canvas for all to see, graciously talking to onlookers and passersby about his techniques.

Hyper-local food vendors served up hot hand-made pizzas, BBQ, tamales, tacos, tortas, hot dogs, hot cider, and more. Jing Dai of Immersive Square, with the help of Adriana Guiman, shared a tent with Seattle Department of Transportation, collaborating on a plan to put community art at the intersection of Beacon Ave S. and S. Lander St, adjacent to the festival, allowing event-goers to use virtual reality to “spray paint” on various surfaces and print and save their creations for possible inclusion in the final project.

Alongside the pop-up festival was a “Gem Hunt” where folx searched Beacon Hill businesses along the north Beacon walking district for “gems” and won prizes when they found them. Luck for gem hunters, everyone who participated found Beacon Hill gems just by visiting the small businesses that make our community unique!

Prize winners of the Gem Hunt and a Beacon Business Alliance (BBA) raffle took home gift certificates, large and small, for local businesses as well as locally-sourced goods and small business swag.

Local youth and adult volunteers generously gave their time and energy from set up to tear down to make this event go off without a hitch—and we’re so, so grateful (plus we made so many new friends!).

Leading up to the physical Beacon Hill event, Seattle’s Office of Economic Development, BBA (that’s us!), Story 2 Designs, Outside thinc, and Indie Genius Media promoted shopping small/local in a massive collaborative online effort that was the overarching ‘Shop Seattle Gems’ campaign. The campaign included: trivia and an online photo contest on social media and the release of multiple videos spotlighting neighborhoods—and their well- and lesser-known small businesses—through local celebrity influencers like Sassy Black and Chef Tarik Abdullah who were filmed walking around their favorite Seattle neighborhood shopping districts while they talked about the places they love.

Check out this awesome photo album we created out of all the great pics taken at the festival!

 

 

Shop Small Gems Pop-Up Festival
on Beacon Hill – Nov. 24, 2018

Produced by Beacon Business Alliance
(formerly Beacon Hill Merchants)

THANKS TO THE TEAM!

Shaka Snipes, Jessie McKenna, Angela Castañeda,
Tamara Vining, and Adi Maxwell

Vendors

Little Wanderer Knits

Simone Dawson

Avenue South

Arte Colorido

Concuss Creations / Rob Castro

Outsider Pizza

Low on the Hog

Sabor Delicioso

Tamale Torpedo

The following Beacon Hill “gems” contributed (or generously offered to contribute)—items toward prizes and food/drink for our volunteers and by selling us items at or below cost, and more—to support Shop Seattle Gems. We’re so grateful for and truly heartened by this massive community effort!

Day Moon Press, Robyn Padlan Hair Salon, Darius X Studio, La Esperanza Mercado y Carniceria, Carnitas Michoacan, Travelers Thali House, Baja Bistro, Estelita’s Library, El Quetzal Bar & Lounge, The Station coffee shop, Outsider Pizza, Hello Bicycle, Perihelion Brewery, Red Apple Market, Agabi Inc. (inside Shell Station), Tippe & Drague Alehouse, Tacos Chukis, Seattle Credit Union, CheBogz (Kusina Filipina family food truck!), and a Sheló NABEL merchant popped up on the Plaza for the festival too. What a turn out of local small business!

…and countless community volunteers came out to help! You all ROCK and we couldn’t have done it without you! THANK YOU!!!

 

Acknowledgements & Contributors:

 

We’re so proud of and grateful for the many people and organizations that made all of this possible, we created a separate page just to honor them. 

Promotion Campaign Partners

Story 2 Designs
Special thanks to Roxanne Franck & Xio Lugo for their hands-on, and tireless contributions
OutSide thinc
Special thanks to the on-site photographers!
Mujale Chisebuka, Matinn Miller, Liyah Washington,
& Jovony Handy Sr.
Indie Genius Media
Special thanks to Jamil Suleman for his creative direction on our 
gorgeous videos 

Funders/donors

City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development
Special thanks to Wynn Barnard, Laura Bet, Michael Wells,
Joe Mirabella, & Mikel Davila
American Express
Special thanks to Jason Lalak, Small Business Saturday Coalition
Milepost 59

…and a big thanks to our north Beacon Hill businesses who opened their doors
to inquisitive gem hunters during the event!

♦♦♦