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White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, Kansas City, MO, USA

Master planning for farm markets that also host festivals

Over the past 31 years in agritourism, we have helped many farm market clients develop master plans or modify their layouts to better host festivals. Some of the challenges include:

• Keep the farm market open for regular customers during festivals.
• If festival admissions and exits went through the market, it would become too crowded.
• Give festival customers a chance to shop at the market with fewer crowds.
• Weekday discounted admission was available for non-staffed attractions at the festival grounds.

Our solution to these challenges was to create two separate procedures for festival entry and exit: one for non-peak weekdays and another for peak weekend attendance. On weekdays, attendees entered and exited through the store. During busy weekends, a separate festival entry with multiple entry booths and a temporary outdoor retail tent were set up outside the market to manage crowd flow and prevent overcrowding. Attendees exited to the parking lot via this temporary store, which was stocked with popular retail and produce items, although they could still leave through the main store.

Using a farm market on a busy festival day for both admissions and exiting/check-out becomes a real disaster.

If the farm also offered u-pick pumpkins and people carried them in wagons, customers walking through the tent store could easily get congested. So, we've suggested a separate, more direct pumpkin checkout.

Additionally, to make it easier for regular market customers to access the farm market during festival times, several of the closest parking spots to the market were designated as 30-minute parking for market-only customers."

Another issue we discuss with our clients when they open the festival grounds solely for non-staffed attractions is that staffed attractions, which are accessible when no staff are present, can actually be dangerous. Therefore, we recommend zoning them in an area that can be closed off to weekday attendees.

There are many details and nuances involved in designing the layout and circulation that are too complex to explain in an article. Additionally, no two farms are the same, and each will have its own unique design challenges. The above and the conceptual master plan below provide a general idea of one master-planned design solution.

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