HILO >> The full return of the Merrie Monarch Festival after three years of pandemic disruptions has also finally brought hula fans and customers surging back into quiet Hilo town. But it’s not just the restored tourism and commerce that makes local jewelry makers Derrick Kiyan and Bridget Chinen smile.

“It’s back, the spirit of Merrie Monarch,” Kiyan said as he helped eager shoppers perusing his laser-carved wood jewelry at his craft fair table at the Manono Street Marketplace outdoor mall. “Everywhere there’s more aloha. It’s more friendly.”

Added Chinen: “Everywhere you look, there are more people, more food, more crafts fairs …”

“This is our Super Bowl!” Kiyan said, finishing his partner’s sentence with a grin.

The weeklong Merrie Monarch Festival is the heartbeat of the Hilo community, its yearly swell the rhythm by which the community here lives, so many residents and visitors alike this past week have been overjoyed at its revival.

When the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the festival in 2020 for the first time since its founding in 1963, and tens of thousands of visitors and millions of dollars in commerce evaporated, so did a certain measure of optimism and connection. Even in 2021, when the hula competition resumed with no audience inside Edith Kanaka‘ole Multi-Purpose Stadium, and in 2022, when only a small number of tickets were given to participating hula halau and no public sales were offered, many say it felt like Hilo too was still struggling to regain its breath.

But now that all pandemic restrictions are lifted, the seaside town once again has been buzzing all Merrie Monarch week, now with the pent-up demand from the pandemic pause: full hotels, stores, restaurants and craft fairs, sold-out attendance at the stadium, parties, unmasked smiles and hugs, and excitement.

>> PHOTOS: Merrie Monarch Festival concludes with hula ‘auana

Kona resident May Gomes said she got choked up witnessing the hundreds of hula dancers moving in joyful unison at opening ceremonies, and again on the stadium stage for Friday’s kahiko (ancient) and Saturday’s auana (modern) group hula competitions. “That was something you thought you might never see again” when the pandemic had once shut down all events and gatherings, she said.

The festival’s full slate of events came back just in time for its 60th anniversary: Alongside four sold-out nights of performances in the stadium, there were daily hula performances in two hotels, a royal coronation ball, hoolaulea and a parade through downtown Hilo.

And once again, a sort of flash economy sprang up across Hilo for the week, with restaurants and businesses offering specials; a festival-anointed invitational craft fair with entertainment; and countless more craft fairs around town featuring vendors not only from Hilo, but flying in from Oahu and around the state.

Many makers of clothing, jewelry, soaps, snacks, artwork and more had been stockpiling merchandise from January or earlier to maximize sales in Hilo. Many rely on Merrie Monarch week for a major chunk of their business. Visitors spend more than $6 million on the festival, a 2018 Hawaii Tourism Authority study found; that doesn’t include what local people spend as well.

Sales were so busy at the three-day craft fair inside Prince Kuhio Mall that feather lei maker Lehuanani Chock was astonished to find on the last day, Saturday, that she had only 11 lei left, a fraction of the shipment she had brought from home in Pearl City. It was her first time selling at festival week. “I’ll definitely be back,” she said, smiling.

Halawa-based fashion designer Kini Zamora, a veteran of the Merrie Monarch rush, created new fabric and outfits celebrating the Maui volcano Haleakala especially for festival shoppers, and flew over thousands of pieces and four staff members.

Surveying the huge crowd at Prince Kuhio Mall, he said he is glad for the way the Merrie Monarch week has put a strong spotlight on local products, which in turn has helped renew cultural pride among people of Hawaiian descent. “It’s exciting to see the younger generation into it,” he said, referencing the recent years’ growing popularity of contemporary Hawaiian fashion.

Indeed, the whole festival and the economic activity it generates is a prime example of “regenerative tourism,” the kind that makes promoting and protecting the host culture a priority, said Angela I. Fa’anunu, an assistant professor of sustainable tourism at the College of Business and Economics at UH-Hilo.

She thinks the whole state can take a cue from the festival. Regenerative tourism here has to “make sure that the Hawaiian people are thriving, the environment is thriving. I think the Merrie Monarch really does facilitate all of that, because at the heart of it, it is showcasing, promoting, educating and really perpetuating the culture. … We have to take care of our people.”

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Editor’s note: Esme M. Infante is a student of Halau Na Mamo o Pu‘uanahulu, one of the halau competing at the Merrie Monarch Festival.