COEUR d’ALENE — The Chocolate Affair has become a love affair.

All 600 tickets to tonight’s event in downtown Coeur d’Alene are gone. The final few $15 chocolate-only tickets and $25 chocolate and wine tickets were snapped up late Thursday.

“As a business owner, to have 600 people coming downtown to our event is fabulous,” said Beth Rich Brown, owner of Mix It Up on Sherman Avenue.

The overwhelming demand for tickets is not surprising to organizers. You can’t go wrong with chocolate and wine. And tonight, you can add special sales and even Music Walk to the mix.

Ilene Moss, owner of All Things Irish and vice president of the Coeur d’Alene Downtown Association, said with this being the slower shopping season, such events, “especially this time of year, getting people downtown is critical.”

Usually held the second Friday of the month, Music Walk was bumped up a week to avoid falling on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14.

“I love that we live in a resort town. We have this vibrant business all summer long,” Brown said. “But come winter time, it definitely slows down for us.”

That’s about to change.

Both The Chocolate Affair and the Music Walk are 5 to 8 tonight and promise to heat up sales in this chilly season. About 20 shops are participating in the Chocolate Affair, and most will have a professional chocolatier on hand.

The Music Walk sponsored by the Coeur d’Alene Arts & Culture Alliance will have performers at shops, bars, galleries and restaurants. Among them are Blackwell Gallery, Taphouse Unchained, Clark’s Diamond Jewelers, Cricket’s Downtown Bar & Grill and The Rockford Buildings.

Music will be blues, rock, country and jazz.

Mix It Up will have Adam Foote playing the handspan, a steel instrument made with divots of different sizes to create low/high notes.

Brown said all told, there are about 25 downtown events each year between the chamber, the association and the alliance.

“It’s critical for me as a business owner to have an event that happens in January and an event that happens in February,” she said.

A professional chocolatier at her shop will be serving samples of a sweet creation with salted caramel and shortbread cookie.

“It’s fabulous,” Brown said.