Offseason disappearing at Delaware and Maryland beaches
Before the mid-1970s, coastal Delmarva became a series of coastal ghost towns from Labor Day until the following Memorial Day. Merchants and other business owners would joke that they had three months to earn a year's pay.There was a good deal of truth to that cliche.
Ocean City used to board up most of its businesses, hotels, motels and restaurants after the Labor Day weekend, and shrink to a community of a few thousand hardy year-round residents. The hustle and bustle of the resort was abruptly cut off when schools opened for the new academic year and most folks stayed away.
There was no reason to visit Ocean City during the fall, winter and early spring months, unless it was an unusually warm day and you weren't planning to buy much of anything — including food or gas.
The story is much the same northward into Delaware.
Delaware's beaches and the Ocean City area in Maryland have had plenty in common: a short tourist season that relies on sunshine, warm temperatures, sand and surf — a tourist economy that booms when the weather's fine and disappears with the summer warmth in September.
Both resort areas also have a shared goal: They are striving to get past the restraints of a three-month, summer tourist economy. Both are succeeding, each in its own way.
RELATED: Ocean City extends season but strives to be year-round
RELATED: Delaware beaches transform into year-round destination
Today, you can visit a somewhat subdued but still bustling beach town anywhere up or down the Delmarva coast in November, January or March, and in December, the holiday shopping, party and social scene is as festive as it is anywhere else.
What changed? Certainly not the staples — sunshine, sand and surf.
Savvy marketing and strategically planned and executed events all winter long can take much of the credit. Warmer winters don't hurt, at least in the short term.
When businesses are shuttered for months at a time, they don't earn money and they don't attract customers. But appropriate festivals can bring tens of thousands of people or more into a quieter winter beach resort, and when they find shopping, dining and nightlife is happening even during winter's chill, they partake and they remember. And they talk to friends and family about it.
Ocean City's pivotal moment was probably in 1974, when Sunfest was established in an attempt to extend what is known as the fall "shoulder season" — a term that refers to the weeks just prior to or following the traditional "season" in the resort town. The corresponding springtime festival, Springfest, was added in 1990. These were followed by events that drew hot-rodders, antique car enthusiasts, motorcyclists and other groups to spring, summer and fall events. New high school graduates are welcomed in June and the town now boasts a recreation department that offers activities for all ages, all year long.
MORE OPINION: What got me out on the beach, even with people there
Winterfest of Lights has become popular with locals and local visitors in Ocean City, with corresponding displays in Delaware resort towns as well.
The Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach began its turnaround when the Sea Witch Festival was established in late fall. It, too, can thank active civic organizations and marketing outreach efforts for its place on the year-round map. Rehoboth and Dewey are not constrained by the boundaries of a barrier island like Ocean City, and were able to expand westward.
Ocean City can likewise thank its Roland E. Powell Convention Center and Chamber of Commerce for hosting and publicizing conventions and unique events throughout the calendar year.
Today, a drive up or down Coastal Highway yields a plethora of places to dine, shop, walk or spend the night all year long. Delaware's coastal communities are close to achieving year-round destination status.
And while Ocean City isn't quite ready to call itself a year-round destination, it's a far cry from the strictly summer resort town that was boarded up after Labor Day while its year-round residents hunkered down for the long, cold and very quiet winter months.