The chair of Steinbach's summer festival wants the board to take another look at making more use of the community plaza along Elmdale Street for Summer In The City. Graham Pollock says the space worked so well for Hometown Hockey and he can see it playing a bigger role in the festival.

"I saw photographs of how the Rogers Hometown Hockey staged the setup and I think we could do the same in that area for the Cultures In The City area. It would make a much bigger venue for Cultures, attract more vendors for sure, more food vendors, more artisan-type vendors but also have a bigger viewing area for people to watch what's going on on the stage. Yes, it's something we will talk about."

But Pollock notes when the board has discussed this in the past, it has expressed concern that people might be hesitant to go away from hustle and bustle on Main Street during the festival. He says they have informally talked about using the plaza for a couple of years now.

"It just lends itself to drawing people, it really does. We've talked about it for two years now, whether we should turn the festival off of Main Street, down into that area. But there's this kind of fear that, oh, if we do that, then that area will be kind of be isolated and not bring the people from Main Street down to it."

Pollock adds some of the vendors he has talked to are also hesitant to move off of Main Street for fear of getting fewer visitors. He says they will continue to discuss the possibility because the plaza is such a great space.