Narberth parks committee drops food-truck festival, approves Sept. 20 movie night

The Narberth Parks and Recreation Committee voted unanimously July 8 to pivot a planned food-truck festival into a movie night on Saturday, Sept. 20, at 7 p.m. "So what we need to know is that we will pivot to a movie night at State By The Park, Saturday, September 20, 7PM movie time," Jamie said during the meeting.

Committee members said low vendor commitments and logistics motivated the switch. "I hate to be boring, but I was coming to that exact same recommendation as well," Tom Del Monte said, echoing other members who favored a smaller, easier-to-execute event.

Why it matters: organizers said the borough already allocated budget for the food-truck festival and that money can be used for the movie night, reducing the need for new funding. Committee members also cited lower setup needs (fewer porta-potties and less barricading) and the past success of movie nights as reasons to scale the event down while still activating public space.

Most important facts: the committee set the date and hour and approved the change by motion. The meeting record shows the committee intended to use the funds already set aside for the food-truck festival to cover incremental costs for the movie night. Jamie said the borough staff member Jeff would contact the movie-screen vendor to confirm availability for Sept. 20; if the vendor can also attend, a single pizza or taco truck would be an added bonus, but the event is planned as a "bring-your-own" food model similar to the spring movie night.

Logistics and vendor status discussed: organizers reported approximately 50% vendor commitment for the original food-truck plan (a pizza truck, a cheesesteak truck and a smoothie truck were mentioned). The committee discussed porta-potty needs, saying the April movie night had about 100 attendees and that two portable toilets plus the park's permanent restroom were expected to be sufficient; one committee member noted the likely need to increase that by one or two units depending on final attendance estimates.

Next steps and direction: the committee approved the motion to pivot and delegated follow-up tasks to staff and volunteers: Jeff to contact the movie vendor; Rebecca and Jamie to work on vendor outreach and a flyer; Kelsey to assist with the flyer; committee members to publicize a community poll on movie choice. The committee also discussed potential family-focused additions such as face painting or a magician and agreed to pursue local partners for low-cost children’s activities.

Context: the change preserves the committee's goal of activating park space while reducing the complexity of the original festival plan. Committee members noted the movie-night format previously drew about 100 people in spring and requires fewer operational elements than a full-scale food-truck festival.

No formal ordinance or statutory source was cited during this discussion; the decision was an internal committee action to repurpose existing budgeted funds.