Holiday Food and Gift Festival provides platform for local vendors to showcase their goods
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- The 23rd annual Holiday Food and Gift Festival returned to Colorado Springs Friday. Which has become a holiday tradition for many households and families.
It's a great way for local vendors and small businesses to showcase their goods. It gives vendors a platform to sell their goods that they otherwise wouldn't have. Especially with the holiday season in full swing.
"This is how they make their income," Festival Owner Stephanie Floyd said. "So good shows are important. I have a heart for small businesses. I feel like the platform is fantastic."
With many turning to online shopping sources for their holiday gifts, business can be tough for many shop owners.
But, this unique holiday shopping experience gives people a chance to shop local.
"I love the fact that people can come to these shows and experience the artisan, talk to them about their art, about how they make it," Floyd said. "How long they've been in business, why they do it, and you can't get that online. You can come here and try the food, talk to the artisan and really get a feel for the love they put in the products they're selling."
The festival is also multigenerational and family owned. Stephanie Floyd started this show with her parents over 30 years ago in Denver before branching it off to Colorado Springs. The family kept the show going through Covid.
The festival has over 100 exhibitors ranging from arts and crafts, tourism, clothing, jewelry, and toys.
"Markets and festivals like this are very important," Kendall Kostelic said with Treasure Box Tours. "We launched treasure box tours in 2020 with the idea of these boxes in the midst of Covid and once these markets started happening again, this has been a key and imperative way we've grown our audience. Especially with our type of self guided tours. It's a hard thing for people to visualize unless they can see it in person. So stuff like this is hugely important."
There will also be a gourmet food area to sample and purchase a wide range of items.
"It gives people ideas about where they can spend money locally," Kostelic said. "You see a bunch of stores online, all the popular big box stores everywhere. Sometimes it can understandably be a lot about whats convenient, easiest to get to, or what they know about. But these markets give people including myself a lot of great ideas about new small businesses to check out that you might not otherwise know about. Like for us, we don't have a storefront."
However, inflation has had an impact on a lot of small businesses recently.
"The biggest noticeable rise in cost is more on the travel aspect," Treasure Box Tours tour director Michael Vincent said. "So flights, busses, hotels. For the products that go into our boxes, because we use local products from local businesses we haven't seen a major increase. The companies we work with don't have to increase their costs because they're not getting it from out of state or out of the country."
The business has tried to combat the rising costs with increasing the number of tours and guests, while keeping the tours more local.
Santa will be making an appearance at the festival Saturday and Sunday, fitting as the whole event is holiday themed complete with decorations, music, and displays.
The Colorado Springs Holiday Food and Gift Festival is at the Norris-Penrose event center in Colorado Springs. It runs from 10-5 Saturday and 10-4 Sunday. Tickets are $5 and parking is free.
