PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Philadelphia Flower Show was moved outdoors this year for the first time in its 193-year history, as a concession to the pandemic.
As it wrapped up this weekend, organizers discussed how this year's show stacked up against previous installments.
The Flower Show was held at FDR Park in South Philadelphia. Overall, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society officials thought attendees enjoyed it.
"We had a great show. It was absolutely beautiful. The responses have been overwhelmingly positive," said PHS Chief of Shows Sam Lemhaney.
Lemhaney admitted Mother Nature threw some wrenches into the works with the heat and rain, on top of hiccups of their own. Still, he said the show was able to go on. Communication with attendees let them fix mistakes on the spot.
"We set up a whole web page [saying], 'We're here, we're listening and we want your feedback,'" Lemhaney said.
"We corrected some of the lines, some of the bathroom issues, food issues that we had. All of that was corrected on site, and we knew we were going to be doing that as we came into the show."
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The PHS expects to have final turnout numbers for the show in the next few days. Lemhaney said their expectations are moderate, as they do not expect to break any records.
"Our attendance was pretty strong," he said. "It definitely was down from 2020 because of the pandemic."
Lemhaney said the PHS is now looking at the show's future, as they try to decide if they'll move things back inside or stay outdoors.
"Now that we've done this show successfully," he said, "[there are] a lot of options right now for us, which is a good thing when it comes to the Flower Show. Who knows, maybe we'll do both!"