The Philadelphia Flower Show is returning to the Convention Center in 2023, and the stakes are high

In Villanova, designer Betsy Block crafts fresh floral crowns for the Flower Show’s Bloom Bar, this year topping each crest with bunches of baby’s breath, a delicate plant symbolizing new beginnings

In Aldan, the Amey family — which has competed in the Philadelphia Flower Show for over 40 years, usually with a crew of about two dozen family members and friends — prepare their latest exhibit with just a bit more excitement.

And at the Convention Center, Seth Pearsoll, the Flower Show’s design director, pushes himself to the limits of his horticultural expression. He builds an entrance garden brimming with rare and eye-popping plants — with names like Blue Angel, Wendy’s Wish, and Mystic Dreamer — meant to announce a grand return.

The Flower Show is coming home.

After shifting outdoors to South Philly due to COVID-19 for the last two years, the Philadelphia Flower Show comes back to the Convention Center on Saturday, a highly anticipated return for the city’s annual floral extravaganza. The excitement is matched by high stakes for the nation’s oldest horticultural event, which debuted in 1829, and now emerges from the crushing heat and rain, dwindling crowds, and sagging sales of the outdoor pandemic shows.

The Flower Show is back in its old home — but will it be back to the cultural event and fundraising juggernaut it once was?

That will be the test, says Jane Pepper, who transformed the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and the Flower Show into national models for nearly 30 years before retiring as president in 2010: Whether the majesty of the flowers can lure back visitors who may have shied away. Paying guests who may have been disappointed in the pandemic shows, no longer work downtown, or whose post-pandemic rhythms no longer include massive indoor events, no matter how storied.

“This is a telling time for the show,” Pepper said. “It’s an important year for the show, and for the horticultural society and for the life of the city.”

This year’s show, themed the “Garden Electric” — that jolt of joy while giving or receiving flowers — is billed by planners as a floral celebration, a return to form, showcasing bold creations and daring displays. They promise a more robust offering than the pandemic shows, and even past iterations of the show at the Convention Center. The larger lineup includes popular parts of the festival-outdoor shows, like a garden path and more bands in the Grand Hall, an extended Artisan row, a butterfly garden, and a marketplace with double the vendors from last year.

First-time exhibitors, such as the national Black Girl Florists, whose exhibit celebrates the sisterhood of Black women in floristry, and ILLExotics, of South Philly, which is building a floral inspired Studio 54 disco on the show floor, bring fresh appeal.

The show’s pandemic pivot has made it more innovative and, yes, more electric than ever, PHS president Matt Rader said, and ready for an uncertain future.

“This has been a transformative moment where we have stepped away from the past to invent a completely new show,” said Rader. “And now coming back downtown, we are inventing another new show.”

The temporary showgrounds at FDR Park offered a floral respite during uncertain times. But they came with headaches.

Prior to the pandemic, the Flower Show historically drew 250,000 visitors. It raised about $1.5 million each year for PHS programs that help provide fresh produce to needy families, plant trees and rehab abandoned lots across the city, and help people find green jobs.

That revenue disappeared during the pandemic. Neither show turned a profit.

In 2021, ahead of the first outdoor show, PHS took the unprecedented step of digging into its endowment funds — withdrawing $4.6 million, or about 10% of unrestricted funds accrued mainly from past Flower Show proceeds. That money helped cover the show’s fixed costs.

The “true once-in-a-century” step was needed to keep afloat a show canceled only a handful of times, and usually during world wars, said Rader.

“We could say, ‘We’re out of the Flower Show business, lay off the team, get rid of the warehouse, and cut all the programs the flower show supports,” he said. “Or we could say, ‘We want to keep the Flower Show and the programs it supports alive through COVID and beyond.”

Thanks to that extra influx of cash, the Flower Show’s first ever trip outdoors broke even on $8.4 million in production expenses, said Rader.

The 2022 show also relied on endowment funds. The show was a point of pride for PHS (“The 2022 show is the most spectacular thing we’ve ever produced,” said Rader) and highly rated by guests — those who came, anyway. Ticket revenue plunged to $2.6 million, a 50% loss from 2020 (which had strong advance ticket sales but saw diminished attendance due to the looming pandemic).

This year, PHS organized a Flower Show fundraising campaign, aided by the show’s donor branches. It raised more than $5 million for show costs, plus the $1.5 million for PHS programming.

It rights the ship, and keeps PHS from sapping the endowment. But the model is based on the show once again returning to its pre-pandemic turnout.

“I’m very optimistic that we’re on the right track,” Rader said.

Vendors hope that support extends to the marketplace. With fewer guests and a smaller footprint, outdoor show sales also took a hit during the pandemic.

“I’m not interested in talking about those times, it was bad for everyone,” said one vendor who is not returning and did not want to be named.

Scott Kremp, who owns Kremp Florist in Willow Grove, has sold at the Flower Show for nearly 50 years. He’s excited to return after skipping last year. The outdoor show, he said, just lacked the normal “oomph.” But he’s unsure if the oomph will return to the Convention Center.

“What we still don’t know is how willing people will be to spend a premium price for a ticket and then purchase something from the marketplace vendors,” he said.

The show hopes to retain younger people drawn to the experiential energy and pop-up feel of the FDR events.

“I had way more friends and people in my circles go to, and talk about the Flower Shows at FDR Park,” said Conrad Benner, who runs the Philly arts photo-blog “Streets Dept.” He curated exhibits at both outdoor shows, and will be curating one this year celebrating Philly’s mural scene. “I’m curious if that same energy will be there when it goes back to the Convention Center.”

For her part, Block, who will run the Bloom Bar at her first indoor show, is optimistic. She’s making hundreds of extra floral crowns to sell. “Everyone I know is delighted, even some people I know who took a pass on the outdoor shows,” she said.

Among longtime flower show devotees, thousands of whom are once again transforming the Convention Center, excitement is building.

Anna Marie Amey, 73, pilots her family’s Flower Show crew, which includes her husband, Stanley, and three daughters — Deirdre, Adrienne, and Elizabeth — and too many others to count.

“It’s home,” Amey said of the Convention Center.

Pepper, the longtime former president, will be watching the show she loves and hoping its grand return is a success.

“There is nothing I want more than to see that flower show do well this year,” she said.