Saturdays in Paris officially wrapped up its three month winter season with the “Paris Winter Games” on Saturday, March 29, 2025.
Back in the beginning of January, the Downtown Paris BIA partnered up with Big Cityyy Arts to launch a new series and promotional campaign, called Saturdays in Paris.
The programming itself was made possible with a grant from the Hamilton Halton Brant Regional Tourism Association, and was designed to help both locals and out-of-town visitors exploring the downtown area through a variety of free events, activities and workshops.
Each month was curated with a special theme in mind: January celebrated arts and culture, February focused food and drink, and March was dedicated to recreation.
Rubyyy Jones of Big Cityyy Arts, said that Saturday’s season finale was all about combining those themes into one experience.
“It’s the finale of Saturdays in Paris winter 2025 season, and today is all about getting out and about to as many places as possible in downtown Paris. We have these cute little score cards with four different categories including ‘shop,’ ‘eat,’ ‘move’ and ‘create,’ and attendees are encouraged to go around collecting stickers in each group,” said Jones. “So for example, if you go to one of our beautiful restaurants or eateries and you stop to eat lunch, that would be under the ‘eat’ category. As for the ‘create’ and ‘move’ medals, we have these stations throughout the downtown where people can stop in and get those; there’s a poetry station, there’s a station where you can write or draw a picture about what Paris means to you, and then the movement stations are things like, strut up the Paris Pub walkway, or do the hopscotch at Wincey Mills. They’re all just fun things that most people can participate in, or are already doing like shopping.”
Jones said that once the score cards were completed, participants could drop them off and be entered into a draw to win a gift basket with over $300 worth of prizes and goodies that have been donated by various downtown businesses.
“It’s an amazing downtown Paris BIA basket and there’s a bunch of gift cards and just really cool products in there. I have to say, it’s been so great to have everyone getting involved and being on board like that, it’s been amazing,” they said. “The downtown business owners have honestly blown me away with their support; some of the events had upwards of 200 people participating, and it would not have been possible if these businesses and the people in the area weren’t so great to work with.”
Shannon Pickering, who owns Wordkind, a stationary store operating out of Paris’ Gem Marketplace, said that as a business owner, she was happy to have the chance to be involved with the Saturdays in Paris winter season.
“I think it’s been an amazing opportunity for the community to come together and for people to come check out our store, see what we offer and learn a bit more about us and the other businesses,” said Pickering. “I really need to thank Rubyyy for all the work they’ve put into this because it’s just been so fun to see everyone out and about every Saturday, and I really hope we’ll be able to continue this into the future because it’s better than I could have ever imagined.”
Overall, Jones said that it’s been fulfilling to see how not only the local community, but even out-of-town visitors, have responded to the events each and every week.
“What’s been so cool is pretty much every week we’ve had instances of people just stumbling on an event and discovering something new. Last week was our ‘Dance Dance Dance’ special, and we had ballroom, Bollywood and salsa dancing in different restaurants,” said Jones. “During the salsa dancing one, these three buses full of University of Waterloo students just showed up and so what started with like, five locals in the salsa dance class, all of a sudden had 50 to 60 young people who then just jumped in and just went for it. That was just so special and so cool, and really that’s the whole impetus of this series; we want to make things happen for people who are local or not, and give them another reason to come downtown. It’s been really magical and fun that way.”
They added that as someone who has been putting on events for over a decade now, its been an interesting learning experience.
“This is the first time I’ve had to kind of meld creative event planning with something commerce specific and so it’s been a bit of a cool puzzle to work out. Some events have been more successful than others, but I’m really looking forward to future events so I can continue to find that balance of, ‘okay, how will this equal sales and monies for our businesses?’” said Jones. “Sometimes just getting people into a store is half the battle and this series has been great in achieving that. For example, some feedback I hear over and over is that people say to the store owners, ‘oh, I’ve never been here before,’ or ‘I haven’t been here for years.’ So it’s been interesting because while some of them may not have made a direct sale that day, maybe they gained a future customer, you know?”
As far as whether or not the programming will continue in the future? Jones said it’s already underway and that plans for April have already been solidified.
“With the Downtown Dig going on, which is obviously on everybody’s mind, Saturdays in Paris is currently one of the only existing marketing initiatives for the area and so it makes sense that it would continue and help people through that tricky period,” they said.
Here’s what Jones said people can expect from the April series, running every Saturday from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.:
- Saturday, April 6 – “Many Hands” Public Art Project
“We’re going to have four different looms, one on each corner of the downtown, and they’re going to have different materials that people can play with and use. There’ll be things like fabric, leaves and twigs, and just a bunch of different materials. That will be fun because I think it’s kind of a craft that everyone can do.”
- Saturday, April 12 – Downtown Paris Maple Map
“This is going on at the same time at the Lions Club’ Maple Syrup Fest; normally, the businesses would have benefited from that festival being downtown but this year it’s moved to Paris Fairgrounds because of the Dig. I just thought if people are already visiting the area, let’s bring them downtown and continue the fun there too. This event is going to be similar to the Downtown Sampler Tour we had in February, but it’s going to be entirely maple themed.”
- Saturday, April 19 – Grand Easter Egg Hunt
“On Easter weekend, we’re doing a double Easter egg hunt, so there’ll be Easter candy hunting, but then also we’re gonna have a cute colouring sheet activity with a little treasure map where you have to colour in the eggs as you discover them.”
*The Easter Bunny will be popping up at the Rustic Palm from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. as well.*
- Saturday, April 26 – Paris Umbrella Parade
“People are going to be encouraged to decorate their own flashy umbrellas at home, and then we’re going to do a promenade type parade through the downtown. We’ll also have a station where, if you didn’t know about the event, you can whip up an umbrella and get it in on the fun.”
*The parades will take place every hour, and Forest + Folk inside the Paris Wincey Mills, will be facilitating the make your own umbrella station.*
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
