Click Here to Play Audio

First, Pharrell pulled Something in the Water.

Then, the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon said dwindling registration numbers mean it's time to leave town after 20 years.

And then the Patriotic Festival moved to Norfolk.

Local merchants at the Oceanfront say the swell of people during events almost always translates to business, but the departing events took tens of millions of dollars in economic impact with them. Now, Virginia Beach city leaders are trying to figure out how to recapture some of that.

At the Flamingo Joe’s boardwalk hot dog stand at 16th Street, sales can double during big events.

“Normally the traffic is heavier just because there's a lot of people coming from … different states, coming in just for the concerts,” hot dog stand manager Deshawn Charity said. But strong tourism traffic overall has meant it’s still been a good year so far.

Half a block up the strip is the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier. Peg Hines is the manager of the Beach Pier Gift Shop and said concerts, festivals and races would often drive people into the shop.

“It can make a difference,” Hines said one July afternoon. “We do have people that'll come in and have never been on the pier or seen the shop before, and they've never tried our fudge. …they'll come in and try it and then all of a sudden they've discovered it. We have people that have lived here their entire lives and never stepped foot in the store.”

Among the events that aren’t happening this year, Hines said her shop will especially miss the Patriotic Festival.

The festival announced last year that it would move to Norfolk from Virginia Beach. The event drew thousands to the Oceanfront for 17 years, though it hadn’t been held since 2019 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Organizers cited the business risks of an open-air festival as the reason for the move. Norfolk’s Scope can seat 11,000 indoors, much more than any venue in Virginia Beach in the event of rain, though it was uncommon for the event to move inside while in Virginia Beach.

Something in the Water was perhaps the biggest, most attention-grabbing departure. 

The festival was originally conceived by Beach native Pharell Williams as a replacement for College Beach Week, an unofficial annual event.

College Beach Week drew thousands of largely Black college students to Virginia Beach just before the start of the usual tourist season and it regularly drew concerns from residents that visitors would be dangerous or rowdy. In recent years, police department data suggests College Beach Weekend was no more disruptive than a holiday weekend.

Williams used his music industry connections to secure major names for the debut of the festival, including a surprise appearance from Jay-Z, and showcased some of Hampton Roads’ most successful performers.

It was only held once, in 2019, but attracted an estimated 35,000 attendees and resulted in an estimated $24 million economic benefit to the region’s businesses.

Williams said the city’s handling of his cousin’s shooting death by Virginia Beach Police in March 2021 prompted him to move the event. The second Something in the Water festival was last month in Washington D.C.

Virginia Beach Mayor Dyer said the city is trying to woo Something in the Water back, while adding more features to existing summer events.

The city recently announced it will ply $750,000 into the East Coast Surfing Championship. The week-long competition was already the Oceanfront’s biggest event of the year. 

The money will pay for a new concert component. Officials have booked punk band The Offspring and pop singer Ava Max (who also grew up in Hampton Roads).

Dyer also announced earlier this year that Virginia Beach will host an extreme sports festival, Jackalope. 

After operating in Canada for the last decade, the three-day festival will come to Virginia Beach in 2023.