{"id":64764,"date":"2025-11-29T22:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T22:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/64764\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T22:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T22:00:09","slug":"hundreds-of-vendors-take-over-vinoy-park-for-shopapalooza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/64764\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds of vendors take over Vinoy Park for Shopapalooza"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shopapaloozafestival.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Shopapalooza Festival<\/a> is taking over Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>What You Need To Know<\/p>\n<p>The Shopapalooza Festival is taking over Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg for its 15th year<br \/>\n<br \/>More than 350 vendors have filled the park<br \/>\n<br \/>Business owners said the event is a great way to meet new customers and gain exposure<br \/>\n<br \/>The event runs all weekend long<\/p>\n<p>350 businesses and tens of thousands of people filled the park\u2019s 11 acres on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gopaliimports.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Gopali Imports<\/a> is one of the hundreds of businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Alex Gopali is the owner, and he started the business 13 years ago. That same year, he had his third open-heart surgery for a heart transplant to help his cardiomyopathy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy doctor told me to get the perfect match heart like that either has to come from my sister or twin brother or something like that, that\u2019s how perfect the body match was,\u201d said Alex Gopali, owner of Gopali Imports.<\/p>\n<p>For nearly just as long as Gopali has had a new heart, he\u2019s been coming to Shopapalooza in Vinoy Park. He says it\u2019s a great way to stay in touch with the community and his regular customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis really helps to keep the local vibe and local shopping alive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The event happens annually on Small Business Saturday, which was started in 2010 by American Express. American Express said small business owners it surveyed are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sba.gov\/article\/2025\/11\/25\/sba-encourages-americans-shop-small-small-business-saturdayr-november-29th\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">expecting 20%<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0their annual revenue to come on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVendors will say of the two days of Shopapalooza I was able to make more money than I have in the last six months of doing other festivals. That means a lot, that means we\u2019re doing something right,\u201d said Shopapalooza spokesperson Pat Largo.<\/p>\n<p>Gopali Imports hopes to continue to stay busy the rest of the year because of the exposure from Shopapalooza, an event that Gopali is grateful to be a part of.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVery lucky to be alive, don\u2019t you think?\u201d Gopali said.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the community support and Gopali\u2019s second chance at life that keeps him coming back year after year.<\/p>\n<p>Shopapalooza Festival will continue on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and admission is free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0The Shopapalooza Festival is taking over Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg this weekend. What You&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2031,558,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,14104,1374],"class_list":["post-64764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-local-business","tag-business","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-topic-latest-local-business-stories","tag-tyler-oneill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}