VIRGINIA BEACH, Va - Some business owners say they made more than double their profits during the Something in the Water Festival weekend.
In addition, parking attendants charged double the price for parking.
As you can imagine, patrons were not happy with paying higher fees.
"Parking has been expensive. It’s been a lot of money to park everywhere and it’s been far to walk," said Chrystal Okafor. "We’ve paid $16 a day for the first two days. Then today we’re parking in this parking lot for $20 a day."
One parking lot attendant, Dalton Ames, said they are bringing in big bucks this weekend.
"This weekend, we’re charging $20 and it’s all day. Normally without a big event going on and it’s a normal day, we normally charge about $10 all day," Ames said. "Yesterday was crazy. We had about 140 spots here in this lot and we filled up around 4 or 4:30."
Ben Savage, the owner of an ice cream shop near Atlantic and 9th Street says they’ve seen an influx of customers.
"Around 5,000 people," Savage said. It's the first big weekend of the summer and it’s going great."
Savage typically serves around 500 cones a weekend.
But not this weekend.
"Probably around like 2,000 ice cream cones since Friday," Savage said.
Some Oceanfront business owners say business slowed down when the weather took a turn for the worst. Still, the owner of Dough Boys Pizza, George Kotarides, said the festival weekend was the start of the tourism season for many businesses.
"We’re gearing up earlier now. We use to gear up for Memorial weekend which is a month away. Now we’re having to gear up because Something in the Water is a major event. It’s on the level of Coachella," Kotarides said.
Oceanfront business managers near the north end of the beach say haven’t seen the same foot traffic as the south end beach businesses.
"Mostly, people are here to have fun, no shopping yet," a t-shirt store sales associate said.
