SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) — With holiday shopping set to begin next week, local businesses are preparing for a wave of customers on Black Friday weekend.

Small Business Saturday encourages folks to shop at hundreds of smaller businesses in Siouxland, rather than retailers like Walmart. Downtown Partners Sioux City executive director, Ragen Cote, compares it to another annual sales event.

“It’s no different than Black Friday, where some of the larger national chains ask you to support those types of businesses and they have specials for Black Friday, there’s Cyber Monday. Small Businesses Saturday is just a way to then highlight the local businesses for the shopping season,” said Cote

The owner of Antiques on Historic Fourth, Randy Peters, has been featured in the event for the past six years. He said every year he gets excited for the event.

“Small Business Saturday has been very successful down here; we have wonderful downtown partners which do a lot of advertising. We get a lot of people coming in. and it’s always been really fun,” said Peters.

The event starts on November 26, a day after Black Friday.