If you had trouble finding a parking spot in Ironton on Saturday, it may have been because of the large number of people who came to downtown for Small Business Saturday.

The annual event is part of a nationwide trend to get people out of the malls and offline to see what their local businesses have to offer and is set between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The event was put on by Ironton aLive and not only did the downtown businesses have deals for customers, they had several things to tie into the Christmas season such as Santa and Mrs. Claus and cookie decorating by Ironton In Bloom at the Transit Center on Second Street, the Boy Scouts set up at Market Square to make s’mores, a trolley transported customers around downtown Ironton and a number of vendors set up at the newly-remodeled Kresge building on Third Street.

“The rain kind of bothered us, but it has let up and we have a lot of good holiday spirit down here,” said Sam Heighton, Ironton aLive’s executive director. “Santa is talking to kids, we have elves making cookies. It is just a good day.”

Jeremy and Anne Dodgon and their kids were in town from Columbus visiting relatives.

“We were in town visiting my father and his family for Thanksgiving,” explained Jeremey Dodgen. “So, we thought we’d take advantage of this.”

“And to support local businesses,” Anne Dodgen said. “The trolley was so much fun for the kids. It seems like there is a lot of good stuff going on.”

“Good things are happening in Ironton,” Jeremy Dodgen said.

At The Vault Market, Amanda Cleary, Ironton aLive’s chairperson for Small Business Saturday, was busy wrapping purchases.

“It is going better than we could ever dream” she said, adding it was fantastic to see the streets filled with shoppers, the store fronts filled with merchants and everyone being proud of Ironton. “It was a fantastic group effort between downtown merchants and Ironton aLive. I was fortunate to have a wonderful committee to handle all the things that usually happen on Small Business Saturday, so we could focus on the pop-up shop at the Kresge building. It has just been a great day.”