ORLANDO, Fla. — The past three weekends have been busy for bars downtown — first Halloween, then EDC, then Warped Tour.
“November was very busy for us so far and it’s only halfway through,” said Bosko Lazic.
Lazic is the owner of Wall Street Plaza. He says he started planning for this weekend started three months ago since they partnered with Warped Tour for the events before and after the concert. Lazic is expecting another record-breaking weekend when it comes to crowds, finding ways to attract all demographics to downtown.
“We always look for any way to expand our hours during the day, so these events this weekend are starting at 11 o’clock in the morning,” said Lazic. “They’re all ages, family-friendly, which really are helping us change the narrative of downtown.”
Fans listened to live performances outside the plaza, ate food and visited bars along Wall Street, including Warped Pour — a bar themed to the iconic Warped Tour.
The team says the busy weekends have been a great boost for the area.
“The local businesses are benefiting from it, as well as the restaurants, hotels and everything. It’s been great to see the surge in business back to downtown,” said operating partner Mike Whites.
Whites says when he moved to Orlando in 2010, this is what it was — community coming together to enjoy different genres of music. He thanks the city of Orlando for helping with that.
“Safety is our number one option always. We overloaded staff, overloaded security. The city of Orlando has been absolutely fantastic with organizing the traffic patterns to get people down here,” said Whites.
There’s no slowing down just yet. Lazic says the Wednesday before Thanksgiving sees an uptick in crowds visiting the bars at Wall Street as well.