As April draws to a close, the ISU campus witnessed a year without a Veishea.

Store owners in Campustown have varying opinions about how this year’s business compared to last year’s.

“Basically, it obviously has been slower. We did see some reaction from kids going out late,” said Elliot Krueger, general manager at Jeff’s Pizza. “If I had to compare it I would compare it to a slower football game. We had a fairly busy Friday, fairly busy Saturday, but pretty normal for the rest of the week though.” 

During a normal Veishea, business can increase 30 to 40 percent a day, Krueger said. This year saw a relatively normal Monday through Thursday and about a 20 percent increase in business for Friday and Saturday.

Other business owners agree with Krueger.

“It was probably 70 percent less than last year,” said Ben Singh, manager of AJ’s Ultra Lounge. “Because they cancelled [Veishea] there were less people from out of town, they had a lot of rules and people couldn’t have house parties.” 

However, some businesses saw an increase compared to last year.

“I definitely had more business than last year at this time,” said Clint Sletter, owner of the Asylum. “I don’t know if we had more steady business with people coming in because people didn’t have anything to do or what.”

Sletter said Veishea provided the campus with a festival feel, which brought people from out of town to the Ames community. Without Veishea, there was less chaos throughout town, which he believes attracted more customers to his business.

“I had a woman come from Illinois, she felt like she could make the drive and not be overwhelmed from all the chaos,” Sletter said.

Sletter, however, has been losing business since Veishea had been moved off Welch Avenue.

“When they moved [Veishea] off of Welch and on campus it was pretty much regular weekend hours,” Sletter said. “When it was closed, then we were taking time off because we weren’t busy. When they moved the date up the weather was bad. So really, it’s really just went downhill since it was taken off Welch.”

Some businesses saw no change. Talia Jenson, owner of Portobello Road, said she didn’t know what to expect this year, but didn’t notice much of a difference as the week passed.

This compares to last year when another retail company didn’t see much of a change.

“We didn’t see a huge drop last year when things were cancelled midweek,” said Anne Taylor, co-owner of Dogtown.

Some business owners were impressed with how smoothly the month has gone.

“Kudos to the police department for planning ahead,” Krueger said.