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Maple festival attendance not disappointing
MONTEREY - "It wasn't a record breaker, but some food vendors had the best year ever," said Highland County Chamber of Commerce director Carolyn Pohowsky, recapping the recent Maple Festival results.
"The chamber is really pleased," she said. ""We sold half of the brass key chains, at end of day we were pleased with the Maple Festival. Vendors were extremely pleased, which surprised everybody given the economy. We expected attendance to be down because of gas, weather and economy, but apparently that wasn't much of a factor."
The brass key chains were a special 50th anniversary commerorative keepsake that will be on sale in years to come until they are sold out. The chamber bought 2,000 brass key chains. Pohowsky said the key chains will give the bearer unlimited access to the vendors at Highland County Public Schools for years to come.
She said the chamber sold around 8,000 of the 10,000 regular key chains. "We figure one-fourth of the people that attend the festival buy key chains, so given that, we estimate an attendance of 30,000-40,000 over the two weeks."
Pohowsky said the festival started out as a maple syrup industry festival, but it has grown into a huge fund-raiser for community organizations.
"Everybody in this community benefits from the Maple Festival, either directly or indirectly," she said. "It is worth taking care of and treating with great respect.
"For the chamber of commerce, it is absolutely critical we know we will always have the funding available to run the Maple Festival. Events are costing more and more each year - postage, labor etc. are going up. The amount of money you can generate doesn't grow at the same rate.
"Other event organizers are amazed that the county doesn't give anything to do an event," she said. They don't believe we can run it without outside help."
She equated running the Maple Festival to running a large business.
She also said the festival has a positive effect on vendors in other ways. "They feel the love, acceptance and friendliness of Highland County," she said.
The next critical point in the annual cycle of festival planning comes in October when the chamber needs volunteers to help label, staple and mail 40,000 brochures announcing the 2009 event.
- James Jacenich
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