After a violent weekend in downtown San Jose, city leaders say they are now focusing on security ahead of some more big events coming to town; one of them March Madness.
A few college basketball games will be played at the SAP Center and a concert series is planned for the week of March Madness in downtown.
The hope with this concert series is that people will come downtown, enjoy the show and also help out small businesses. At the same time, security is top of mind.
The headliners at Music Mania include DJ Diesel, also known as Shaq, Bebe Rexha and Dustin Lynch.
“Our expectation is to have a pretty good turnout with this being specifically a family friendly event,” said Zach Waldren, the executive producer behind the shows.
With a big turnout comes plans for security. Waldren says they’re working with a private security company and SJPD. Councilmember Anthony Tordillos, who represents the area, says that’s the number one priority for these events.
“There’s a collaboration that happens with each of these events with the event promoter, with the office of cultural affairs, with SJPD, so we can make sure we have security plans in place, we can learn what did and didn’t work with previous events,” Tordillos said.
With events like these also comes the potential for local businesses to benefit.
“We’ll be partnering with local food trucks, local businesses that way but also all the businesses on first street will see additional food traffic,” Waldren said.
“On those nights when they have the concerts, we’re usually staffed up,” said Greg Bardakos, manager at Original Joe’s.
Original Joe’s expects to be busy the week of March Madness with visitors in town. They saw a big jump in business Super Bowl week.
“We’ve been pretty solid this year and I think it’s gonna be consistent all the way thru summer,” Bardakos said.
“We talked to a lot of business owners downtown and in San Pedro Square who said they had all time sale records during the super bowl, we’re hoping to build on that and give folks a reason to come downtown,” Tordillos said.
