By Aiden Lorenzo
Photo credits – Aiden Lorenzo
As far back as I can remember, Summerfest has always been a staple of Sayville. A sole weekend during the summer where families can go to experience everything that makes Sayville great, including a fair for the kids, vendors that promote local businesses, live music, car shows, a 4K race, food, among so many other great aspects. But putting everything together is not an easy task and what many people don’t know is that it starts almost as soon as Summerfest is over.
The Messenger had the opportunity to speak with Eileen Tyznar, the president and administrator of Sayville’s Chamber of Commerce and the chair of Summerfest.
“There’s a lot of planning, a lot of pieces, and in actuality, we’re planning five events in one,” said Tyznar. “A lot of people don’t realize that but it’s the beer and wine tent, the live music, the amusement, the 4K run, and the car show. We are literally planning five events in one. We worked with Sayville Running Company on the race, we worked with many car enthusiasts on the car show, Roxie’s Ice Cream helps with the food and, of course, Newton Amusements helps us with the show.”
There is a lot of planning and preparation that goes into a multi-day event like this, and for a small hamlet, it surely deserves all the help that it can get.
And like many things that require as much preparation as this, it has a ton of benefits for such a tight-knit community like Sayville.
“We’re creating memories, we’re creating a nice flow of people who’ve never even discovered Sayville, and because we have all the vendors on our side streets, people come to see them and even our own local business owners pull out all their stuff outside, so there’s a benefit of commerce. There’s a benefit of people wanting to move here and stay here because of big events like this,” added Tyznar.
And the benefits don’t stop there as local businesses like stores and restaurants get big crowds during events like these, thanks to a combination of both local crowds and also tourists coming in to discover these places.
“I think that Summerfest is a great way to not only bring the community together and even maybe see people that you might not often see much, but it’s a reason for everyone to come into town and see all the businesses that are constantly growing,” Jake Byrne, co-owner of Sayville’s own Cafe Joelle and The Greenery told The Messenger.
They also had an interesting way of promoting themselves during this weekend. Considering that Cafe Joelle had just moved from its longtime location on Main Street to a vacant restaurant building on Foster Avenue, they utilized their old location by putting up signs promoting the new Foster location and getting people to come down for a meal and some drinks.
“It was a record-breaking weekend for us, and at The Greenery, as well. Even though we’re off of Main Street, it still gave us great numbers and exposure and I even saw a lot of new faces, which I thought was very cool. I think that’s what Summerfest also does, it brings people to town that normally wouldn’t come here and it’s good because they could find a place that they’ve never been before because they want to take their kids to the carnival or see some live music,” said Byrne.
Aside from showcasing the best of Sayville’s local businesses, Summerfest is also a great way for many talented individuals to get recognition for their talents, whether it be in the fields of art, fashion, music, or in this case: writing.
“I grew up in Sayville and I’ve been going to Summerfest all my life, and it’s really cool to be on the other side of the table this time around. It’s really exciting and it’s an honor to be here and sell my books to anyone who would be interested,” said Sayville-born author J.R. Geraci, who was promoting The Stone Guild, her original duology of fantasy novels. Geraci’s other novels Creator of the Stones and Seer of the Stones are available now on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.
Overall, we can say with certainty that Summerfest 2024 was a great success. We saw a community come together, and we even saw people who would probably be interested in moving to a place like Sayville just because of events like these. I cannot recommend going to Summerfest enough! It is simply an essential event regardless of where you live or how old you are.
