Annual Block Party draws large crowd

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

Despite some morning rain, Main Street Van Wert’s Block Party went off without a hitch on Saturday. Much of the event was held along Central Avenue and it attracted a steady stream of visitors of all ages during the late afternoon and evening hours.

“We were in contact with (Van Wert County EMA Director) Rick McCoy all week, trying to keep our finger on the pulse and find out what’s going on with the weather,” Main Street Van Wert Executive Director Joe Dray said. “Once the rain moved through this morning we were really happy because it only set us back a little bit on our stage setup and that sort of thing. We’ve really had very few hiccups compared to last year and attendance seems to be where it was last year too.”

The Block Party, which ran from 4 p.m. to midnight, featured a number of different food trucks, vendors, a kids fun zone, a DJ, live high energy music by the Fort Wayne-based “Krazy Neyberz Band,” a cornhole tournament and the popular Duck Egg Race along Town Creek.

“There’s always talks about how can we do things better, how can we improve on what we’re already doing,” Dray explained. “One of the things we heard last year was ‘we want more food trucks’ so we have a lot more food trucks this year. We added a DJ and a photo booth and we have more market vendors this year…we have new things and new ideas that we’re trying out.”

“Once this is over we’ll go back and find out what worked and what didn’t and we’ll try to improve on it and grow, but we’re starting to get to the point where we’re going to run out of room,” he added. “We may have to look to expand physically a little bit more.”

The Duck Egg Race involved hundreds of numbered ping pong balls being dropped into Town Creek. The first one to cross the finish line was the winner and that ball happened to belong to Chris Wannemacher, who was awarded the $1,000 grand prize.

The Van Wert Freedom Cruise was also part of the Block Party.

“We come together and it makes one really big event and we’re always looking for partners and people we can partner with to make our event bigger or better or add more value to it,” Dray said.

The next downtown event offered by Main Street Van Wert will be Farm to Table at 7 p.m. Saturday, August 5. More information is available at https://www.mainstreetvanwert.org/farm-to-table.