Good riddance to the Arroyo Grande Strawberry Festival. But what should take its place?

Sorry, but we stopped being fans of Arroyo Grande’s famous Strawberry Festival years ago.

It began as a charming, small-town event featuring local arts and crafts, entertainment, contests, and of course, all manner of strawberry desserts served up by nonprofit organizations and local merchants.

It was something locals looked forward to, until the festival became a victim of its own success.

Once the Strawberry Festival was “discovered,” the crowds grew as large as 100,000, though numbers have dwindled in recent years. There were also more out-of-town vendors, including food sellers who competed with local restaurants.

Locally made crafts were far outnumbered by tacky, mass-produced trinkets. The masses of people made it nearly impossible to get through the doors of those local businesses courageous enough to stay open. There were times when traffic control was needed to get pedestrians across the Swinging Bridge. And residents and merchants in the Village were practically held hostage due to the closed-down streets.

Heck, even the strawberries didn’t taste quite as sweet.

In short, a local event became over-commercialized.

We salute the South County Chambers of Commerce and Village merchants for recognizing that it’s time for a change. It will no doubt disappoint some people, but it was the right call to rebrand and scale back the Strawberry Festival.

We look forward to the upcoming Strawberry Celebration, which promises to be a low-key event. There will be no street closures — hurray! — or out-of-town vendors. It sounds like a throw-back to the festival’s early days.

But the celebration may end up being a one-and-done event. As The Tribune’s Kaytlyn Leslie reported, the Chamber plans to consult with tourism experts to determine whether it makes sense to continue a strawberry-themed party on Memorial Day weekend, or perhaps try something different.

That raises the question: What sort of Memorial Day event would be a good fit for the Village?

A wine and food festival, to showcase the growing number of tasting rooms and restaurants in the Village?

A juried arts-and-crafts show?

A sidewalk sale for local merchants?

A music festival?

A half-marathon, maybe?

Or does the Village even need a Memorial Day event?

Why not refocus on the annual Harvest Festival held in the fall, which used to be the city’s premier event before it was eclipsed by the Strawberry Festival.

What do you think?

Write to us at letters@thetribunenews.com.

Oh, and if you’re in town over Memorial Day weekend, check out the Strawberry Celebration. It may turn out to be just what the Village needs: a hometown party starring one of the area’s most celebrated delicacies — ripe, freshly picked berries.