Bo Winslow, manager of the fairgrounds, events and facilities department, told the Community Development Committee (CDC) last week that any new event on a holiday weekend or in the summer in Bond Park requires the approval of the town board.
The new festival, planned for the Martin Luther King Jr., holiday weekend in January of 2010, received the committee members` endorsement and moved closer to being official, as they placed it on the consent agenda for the town board.
Winslow told the committee that more than eight organizations have banded together and “worked very hard together to bring Front-Range tourists to this community in the off-season.” Among the groups organizing the Winter Festival are the Estes Area Lodging Association, Eagle Rock School, Merchants Association, the Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), the town of Estes Park, the Wedding Association, the Estes Valley Recreation and Parks District, the Bed and Breakfast Association and several other local organizations.
“The goal of this festival is to bring people to town during a slow time of the year,” Winslow said. “(Organizers) have formed a committee to provide a variety of different activities that would give tourists many options of things to do while they are in Estes Park. The Winter Festival Committee is requesting to hold one of their
many events in Bond Park.”
Bond Park would be used Saturday and Sunday of the January holiday weekend, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., for the following family-oriented activities:
A snowman-building contest (with snow trucked in, if necessary)
A snowball-making contest
A tent with arts and crafts
A chili cookoff for professionals and locals, with prizes and a celebrity impersonator judge
A hospitality tent
Beer, wine and cheese tent
Tent to 15 vendor tents.
In addition, Winslow said, the Y is offering a free day, there will be carriage rides around town, the Winter Trails Festival in Rocky Mountain National Park and Earthfest at the Stanley Hotel.
CDC chairman Chuck Levine said, “I`m very much in favor (of this winter festival). It`s a wonderful idea. I applaud the group for thinking of how we can get people up here at different times.”
Committee member Dorla Eisenlauer thanked Elizabeth
Blanchard of the Local Markeing District for coordinating the effort.
“I`m glad you didn`t include ice sculpture,” she said. “It would probably melt.”