Flower Show aims to attract younger, hipper crowd

With a "Celebrate the Movies" theme, a partner named Disney, and new attractions like College Night, "Cinderella Sunday," a doggy parade, and an indoor pop-up beer garden, the folks behind the 2015 Philadelphia Flower Show hope to punch up its famously middle-aged, suburban demographic with the young families and urban hipsters every nonprofit wants to capture.

"We have a very loyal following, but we need to create a history of coming to the show for new generations of young people," said Drew Becher, president of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, producer of the show, which dates to 1829 and runs from next Saturday through March 8 at the Convention Center.

Exhibitors have been charged with using plants and flowers to interpret Disney scenes, props, and characters, not to replicate them. "Don't be thinking Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck," Becher said.

Designers are working with Disney titles of every stripe: from Mary Poppins, Cars, and Winnie the Pooh to Pirates of the Caribbean, Into the Woods, and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Pennsauken florist Michael Bruce will interpret Disney's Frozen with four-foot icicles made of tightly packed baby's breath and an ice castle fashioned from curly willow branches sprayed a frosty white.

"We'll be evoking the castle. It's very important to use the word evoking," Bruce said.

For Peter Pan, Waldor Orchids of Linwood is using crocodile ferns, so named because their foliage resembles the reptile's hide, to represent Tick-Tock, the scary croc who swallowed a clock and Captain Hook's hand, after Peter chopped it off.

There will be audio of a ticking clock, a tree fort to suggest Peter and his Lost Boys, and cascading orchids whose tiny blossoms will mimic Tinker Bell's pixie dust.

"I think this is going to work," said Walter Off, Waldor's co-owner. "You get Disney involved and a lot of people want to come."

Getting Disney involved has been a goal of Sam Lemheney, the horticultural society's chief of shows and events, for 10 years. (Lemheney was recruited to PHS in 2003 from Walt Disney World, which has 4,000 acres of gardens and a horticultural staff of about 600.)

"I love Disney movies. I have pretty much every Disney movie on DVD," he said.

The Disney partnership was an outgrowth of PHS's relationship with 6ABC, which broadcasts the Flower Show preview party each year and is owned by the Walt Disney Co.

Whether so much Disney-fying and so many new features will attract a younger set remains to be seen. But PHS optimistically cites surveys showing that over the last two years, the average age of new members has dropped from 66 to 55, and there is anecdotal evidence of more adults with children at the Flower Show, possibly prompted by a new family ticket package.

Since Becher arrived in 2010, more show events have been aimed at the 18-to-34 crowd. This year they include a 5K run to - followed by a party at - the Convention Center and "Fido Friday," when dogs and their humans can attend the show. That event begins with "Yappy Hour" in the pop-up beer garden and will offer puppies for adoption.

For all this, weather is a perennial worry, whether it snows - or doesn't.

In 2013, predictions of a major snowstorm during show week never materialized, but attendance and revenue took a big hit. Becher took some heat, too, for publicly blaming local TV and radio forecasters' hype.

Two things on this front: PHS received more than $600,000 from its event-insurance carrier for the 2013 debacle, and starting in 2016, the Flower Show will shift to slightly later dates to maximize chances for good weather.

Next year, the show opens March 5; in 2017, March 11.

And finally, one other issue may have been settled: a possible protest by the Carpenters' Union, which has a beef with the Convention Center. Since last May, when it failed to meet a management deadline for signing a new customer satisfaction agreement, the union has been locked out of the building.

But on Feb. 7, according to authorities, "waves" of union carpenters with tickets to the Philadelphia Auto Show, also held at the center, proceeded to harass attendees and vandalize vehicles. The union denies this.

The Convention Center Authority later obtained a restraining order forbidding the union from interfering with the car show. On Friday, Common Pleas Court Judge Nina Wright Padilla issued a permanent injunction aimed at preventing the carpenters from disrupting any show inside the center.

Martin O'Rourke, spokesman for the Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters, with 18,000 members in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, downplayed the significance of the court order.

"This injunction prohibits activities that the carpenters were not engaging in and do not plan to engage in," he said Friday, "but the carpenters will continue to exert their First Amendment rights to protest peacefully and legally."

Protests are not unknown at the Flower Show.

In 2010 and 2011, the Earth Quaker Action Team, an environmental activist group, led demonstrations inside and outside the Convention Center against PNC Bank, then the show's main sponsor, over its financial support for certain mining practices in Appalachia.

The protests temporarily recalibrated the show's mellow vibe but were peaceful.

For all this, it's easy to forget that the Flower Show, with an average attendance of 244,000 over the last five years, raises millions of dollars for PHS programs that supply fresh produce to needy families, plant trees, and refurbish abandoned lots around the city.

"That's who we are," Becher said.

215-854-5720 @inkygardener

facebook.com/InqGardening

www.philly.com/kisstheearth