PITTSTON — The city is filled with events throughout the year, and a new one is about to added to the list.
At a press conference Tuesday at the Pittston Memorial Library, the Greater Pittston Chamber of Commerce announced a new event it’s sponsoring called Make My Day 2018, which will take place Sunday, Aug. 26.
It will serve as a bridal and party planning expo for future brides and high school students looking to purchase formal attire for dances.
Pittston City Mayor Mike Lombardo kicked off the press conference and talked about how important it is for the city to continue growing with events.
“We believe in the administration within the city that events are really critical to driving masses downtown and really supporting businesses that are down there,” he said. “Tomato Festival is an event that’s been around forever that we all know about. We’ve also done things around Christmas time and the holidays. We had a great Saint Patrick’s event that’s gone on for several years. We also rolled out an Art Walk that’s coming up in two weeks which we’ve expanded and added two more dates. So, we continue to do that and we believe that doing those events really helps drive things downtown.”
From there, Michelle Mikitish, Executive Vice President of the Greater Pittston Chamber of Commerce, spoke about the Make My Day event while students from Pittston Area High School modeled dresses and suits.
The idea for the event came from the Small Business Merchants Association (SMBA), a group of Greater Pittston small business owners with the purpose of promoting their business while helping others do the same.
“We started talking about bridal shows and what a bridal show looks like, and the concept of being in a venue of some sort where everybody sits at tables and often times the bride just goes around getting information,” she said. “The more we started talking about it, the more we realized how it needs to be a much larger and much better event both for our guests and Pittston.”
The event will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. in the John P. Cosgrove Center at the Pittston Memorial Library with registration set to begin at noon.
After future brides check in and register, they will be given a map of the businesses and vendors they can visit during the four-hour time frame.
From there, they can learn about dresses, florists, venues, hair and makeup, photographers, decorations, dance lessons, tuxedoes, transportation and more.
Mikitish said there are currently over 20 vendors signed up for the event, but organizers are prepared to accommodate 100 if needed. The event is not limited to Pittston businesses.
“This is something that’s going to be much bigger than Greater Pittston,” she said. “Greater Pittston and downtown Pittston is going to be the venue, but certainly we’d be able to draw businesses from beyond the Greater Pittsotn area.”
